Australian rugby player Israel Folau has been signed by the Catalan Dragons, a Super League rugby team, for a 12-month contract. The 30-year-old dual-code international was dropped by the Wallabies after he made homophobic comments on social media in May last year. He later gave a sermon where he claimed Australia’s devastating bushfires were a “little taste of God’s judgement” linked to Australia’s same-sex marriage and abortion laws. The Northern Hemisphere-based Super League Executive Chairman Robert Elstone said the signing “lets down many people” in the sport but said he had no power to veto the signing. “Super League deplores the homophobic comments Israel Folau has made in the past, which squarely contradict our sport’s core values,” he said.