By Marc McGowan
The AFL wants to slash the still-sizeable national community umpire shortage to 5000 by year’s end, 12 months after the league’s former football boss Brad Scott labelled the issue a “massive concern”.
Scott, who is now coaching Essendon, said at this time last year the game was 6000 whistleblowers short as umpiring numbers failed to match the then-boom in playing participation rates in men’s and particularly women’s football.
The AFL believes last year’s dissent rule helped reduce incidents at community level.Credit: AFL Photos
Outgoing AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan even acknowledged the shortage had “got away from us”.
Those comments came as the league introduced a dissent rule designed to improve on-field respect towards officials and crack down on umpire abuse, including demonstrative verbal and non-verbal reactions from players.
Umpire numbers are three per cent higher than last year, and executive general manager Rob Auld told The Age the goal was to slash the deficit to 5000 by season’s end, in part with more female umpires.
In fact, the AFL wants women’s umpiring representation to increase from almost 12 per cent to about 20 per cent of the national tally by 2025, although that is a separate ambition to reducing the shortage.
“We’re ahead of the same time last year, and we’re on track to increase our umpire numbers closer to 18,000 for the 2023 season [after ending last year at about 17,000],” Auld said.
“But, realistically, to close a 6000 gap in a single 12-month period would have been an unsustainable increase, and it was not going to be one that we felt was going to bring people in to umpiring with the right experience and coaching.
“We’ve got to continue to build the right environment and infrastructure as we’re recruiting umpires.
“Statistics tell us that if you can bring new umpires in and keep them in our operating network for more than two years, they are significantly more likely to stay for much longer.”
Auld, who coached senior teams in previous seasons and a junior side last year, believes the dissent rule reduced umpire incidents at community level, even if it is too early for anything bar anecdotal evidence.
“There are always small little spotfires, but there is nowhere near the arms in the air and back-chatting of umpires there used to be – that pretty much stopped with the umpire dissent rule,” he said.
“Where I remain disappointed about is the behaviour on the other side of the fence, and everybody’s got to own that. That’s a community opportunity, that one, and plays a significant role in keeping umpires in the system.”
The AFL trialled a three-phase coaching box card system in Queensland football last season to manage repeat instances of unacceptable behaviour towards umpires, which could result in a coach being removed from a game.
The AFL’s goal to recruit more female umpires could also help solve the overall shortage.Credit: Getty Images
In South Australia, there was even a junior SANFL round mid-year where all coaches and officials were required to sit for the duration of play to help keep emotions in check and stamp out abuse and dissent.
Club fines and deduction of premiership points are among the penalties for inappropriate conduct towards umpires, with the SANFL calling off multiple junior matches last year for this reason.
The umpiring vision for women is well under way, including 400 new or redeveloped facilities with gender-neutral umpire change rooms since the inception of AFLW in 2017 to increase the national number to more than 1000.
There was also a 63 per cent increase in women on the AFLW umpiring panel in the most recent season, while the initiatives include the newly established pre-season female umpire talent academy. That academy includes 17 female umpires who were talent identified from community football.
“We launched our female football vision in late 2021 ... and there’s a whole suite of initiatives around increasing the number of female umpires,” Auld said.
“We want to ensure that their environments – facilities, coaching, culturally, and pathways – are much better, and more accessible, than they’ve been in the past.
“Clearly, if we get more females umpiring; that’s going to help us with our [overall] shortage. But the initiatives we’re targeting of 1000 more umpires a year for the next three to four years are gender agnostic.”