AS SONNY BILL WILLIAMS last night prepared to play his second match for French rugby union club Toulon in defiance of a NSW Supreme Court injunction, his former Bulldogs teammate Hazem El Masri admitted he felt the club may have been cursed in recent times.

With Williams's shock departure the latest in a string of dramas at the Bulldogs as they edge closer to the wooden spoon, El Masri conceded the club was at its lowest point in his 13-year career.

"The whole year's been tough," El Masri said. "You go through ups and downs, but it probably doesn't get any lower than this.

"It's amazing what things keep popping up. This is just another one. I think someone has just cursed the club over the last five years. I don't think it could get any worse.

"But every club goes through some tough times. You rebuild."

But El Masri refused to be critical of Williams for walking out on the club just one year into a five-year contract, saying: "The bottom line is it's up to him. He said he had his reasons. That's the way things go. He went about it his way … although I would have never done it that way."

El Masri made the comments on a day in which lawyers representing the Bulldogs and the NRL foreshadowed in court that they would begin contempt proceedings against Williams that could result in him facing jail or having his assets seized.

But Toulon officials yesterday rejected claims made in court that legal papers had been served on Williams after his debut last week in a continuation of the hardline stance adapted by the club's owner Mourad Boudjellal.

"That's absolute rubbish," a Toulon source told AAP. "They haven't handed any papers to him, definitely not. I don't know where they stand legally, but they [the NRL] seem to be making a lot of noise because they can't do much more than that." Boudjellal went further by suggesting that Williams's shock walk-out and code switch was related to wider problems at the Bulldogs, a club he didn't even know existed six months ago.

"When something like this happens, it's not just the the fault of the club or just the fault of the player - it's normally a bit of both. It's more complicated than that," he said on the club's website.

"If I was the president of the Bulldogs [George Peponis], the first question I would ask myself is why has a player left the club in these conditions?

"If Sonny Bill left us after being disgusted at what's been going on, why? If he's disgusted about what's been going on, perhaps other players are as well.

"Perhaps he [Peponis] should try and sort out his problems.

"Obviously, the easiest thing for everyone to say is that it's [about] money but that means you can avoid asking yourself the hard questions. But it doesn't mean it's as easy as that. There's a lot more to it than money."

Asked about the possibility of Williams being arrested, Boudjellal said: "Obviously the French don't have the same culture as Australia because, I'd suggest, getting arrested for that … there are a lot of far more shocking things in the world which go on that you would get arrested for before that".

The NSW Supreme Court last week granted a temporary injunction against Williams playing any other code of football and for any team other than the Bulldogs but he reportedly went to great lengths to avoid being served papers advising him of the ruling.

However, Boudjellal said the precautions were made to keep the media away from Williams.

"We want to protect him from a lot of things, we have taken amazing precautions," he said.

"The media … from what we have heard when he was in Australia, he was in the media a lot and that's something he doesn't like.

"In France, people want to know if he plays well - not if he's good in bed."

Boudjellal said his only concern about the court hearing in Australia was that it may distract Williams, who this week spent three days with his new team-mates at training camp at the foot of the French Alps.