Footy legend is on the path to TV stardom as Fox Sports makes HUGE changes to its line-up

Kieran Foran is set to make his television commitments permanent with the former Gold Coast Titans star set to imminently retire from rugby league.

The veteran 35-year-old halfback is set to play in his final professional rugby league game this weekend, with New Zealand due to take on Samoa in the final of the Pacific Cup.

After winning this year’s Ken Stephen Man of Steel Medal for his work supporting mental health charities, Foran announced that he would be retiring from professional footy.

However, he won’t be leaving the game for good, with the 300-gamer agreeing a surprise move to re-join his old club, Manly, as an assistant coach.

The footy star has also set his sights on becoming a senior coach one day, however, he is set to combine his new commitments with a media career, according to News Corp.

Fox Sports are making a raft of structural changes ahead of the new season, with Foran, a mental health advocate and former premiership winner, set to take up a permanent role on the network’s rugby league coverage.

Elsewhere, former NRL360 producer Mitch Diffin, was appointed as the head of rugby league at the network.

He has been in charge of NRL360 for the past seven years and began his new role at the start of November.

Jamie Lockyer, meanwhile, will become the head of cricket with this summer’s Ashes series fast approaching.

TV presenter Yvonne Sampson is also due to return to the network after the brith of her baby, Darby.

‘In our world it’s hard to find good young producers and I feel like I have probably got the best young producers in Australian broadcasting,’ Fox managing director Steve Crawley said to the outlet.

‘I have worked with a lot of producers and I feel like this might be the best crop I have had. These guys work in a new world where it is not singular what they do.’

After a stellar career on the pitch, Foran has been plotting out his future, insisting that he is in no rush to rise to the top of coaching.

The Kiwi footy star has in the past appeared on Fox’s rugby league coverage as a pundit, but is now set to twin his desires to become a top coach with his budding TV career.

'I've certainly got aspirations to coach,' Foran said to The Daily Telegraph.

'What I will say is I'm not in any rush to become a head coach. I want to do a proper apprenticeship and I feel it's a wonderful opportunity to go and do that back at Manly under Anthony.

'He's the sort of guy and coach I probably haven't had throughout my career. I think I'll be able to learn and grow a hell of a lot from him.

'To be able to do it back at Manly with familiar people is a wonderful opportunity.'

His story is an inspiring one. The footy player has overcome a string of horrible injuries during his career. Those injuries and a breakdown in a past relationship sent him spiralling into depression. He opened up on drinking excessively and using gambling as a coping mechanism before contemplating taking his own life.

But his wife Karina helped him break out of that dark period.

'Karina has been the steady soul I needed. She met me at a dark time in my life, and I was warts-and-all about where I wanted to be [in terms of personal growth],’ he told Daily Mail in September.

Foran has also gone on to do some inspiring work, becoming a mental health awareness advocate while setting up a charity called Logan’s Legacy, named after his wife Karina’s late son, who died by suicide in 2023.

The organisation aims to provide support to young people struggling with mental health issues.

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