Paul Starick: AFL should compensate Adelaide Crows for goal umpiring decision

Umpiring is a tough job but Crows fans are sick and tired of inconsistent calls – the AFL should compensate the club for its inexplicable goal umpiring decision, writes Paul Starick.

The AFL should compensate the Adelaide Crows for the inexplicable goal umpiring decision that robbed them and other clubs of finals campaigns.

AFL chief Gillon McLachlan on Sunday morning conclusively declared the contentious decision should have been reviewed and, had that occurred, the Crows would have been awarded a goal.

This would have put them in front with a minute to play, in a game the club had to win to make finals.

The AFL is a huge, billion-dollar industry, as Hawthorn great Dermott Brereton pointed out, then rhetorically asked: “And we can’t get that right? That’s kids stuff. That just shouldn’t happen.”

Yet, as Mr McLachlan conceded, it did and it has consequences beyond the Crows, kicking Geelong out the finals and complicating the task for St Kilda, GWS and the Western Bulldogs.

Making finals is a big deal. It’s a crucial measure of success when careers of players, coaches and officials are on the line.

Crows coach Matthew Nicks after the loss during the 2023 AFL Round 23 match between the Adelaide Crows and the Sydney Swans at Adelaide Oval on August 19, 2023. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images

In any other business, there are consequences for such huge mistakes. In our increasingly litigious society, these are often financial. The Crows should have considered their legal options, perhaps seeking some lost revenue, or even making an ambit claim for a draft pick.

But the AFL won’t be swayed. Mr McLachlan comes out and says sorry. The Crows issue a statement that has a bit of fight but ultimately concedes that nothing can be done.

Imagine the heat on the AFL if this was Collingwood, Carlton or Richmond – one of the powerful and influential Victorian teams – that had been stung so hard.

Would these clubs and the AFL commentariat – the journos and former players – express outrage but then meekly fold and accept nothing can be done?

At least Brereton in the immediate aftermath of the goal umpiring howler showed the spine for which he was renowned on the field, predicting the AFL would likely acknowledge an error but this would be “a really icy consolation” for the Crows.

“It’s a classic case of injustice and nothing will change,” he presciently declared.

Of course, the Crows put themselves in a position in which the umpiring call mattered. Once again, they kicked inaccurately and played poorly in the first half.

Fans accept that umpiring is a tough job. But they are sick and tired of inconsistent calls and a recent parade of shockingly inaccurate decisions.

These have deep and lasting ramifications for people involved in the AFL industry, particularly players and coaches.

And if the AFL wants to keep taking more and more money from fans during an extraordinary cost-of-living crisis, it needs to do something more than just say sorry and sweep everything under the carpet.

*Paul Starick is an Adelaide Football club foundation member.