How the AFL has completely botched a noble quest for umpire respect and made them more despised than ever

Of course, the AFL came out and defended their umpires for applying “common sense” when Chad Warner kicked the ball onto the roof of the SCG after giving away a free kick in the dying stages of Friday night’s game against Richmond.

A match, I might add, that was grossly over-umpired, with no regard for common sense, or entertainment, by adjudicating a total of 61 free kicks across the night.

The free-kick paid against Warner was complete nonsense, I might also add, and if you are paying the contact from Warner to Prestia, you have to first pay the high contact from Prestia to Warner.

The issue here is that the umpiring has now reached farcical levels. And this instance further highlights the breakdown in respect that everyone in the game, whose name is not Brad Scott, holds for the sweeping changes of the rules and interpretations implemented across the last decade.

This dissent malarkey has made things worse for the umpires, which is a shame because the intention was great, but the outcome – through the AFL’s inability to read the room – is that the fans end each weekend truly despising them through the fact that they’ve never been more visible.

Every facet of the AFL is playing out like a full-blown satire. You can picture Rob Sitch in character, as the new umpire’s boss, delivering these words.

“The AFL confirms the decision late in last night’s match to not pay a 50m penalty was correct *and the umpires will be honoured with MBE’s as a result of their good work,” the league said in a statement.

“The free kick to Richmond player Prestia was correctly paid (by the non-controlling umpire in the centre of the ground *who was on a power mission to reach the most-free kicks paid in a three-week span) and almost immediately after the free kick was paid, the siren sounded.

“The umpires then made the correct call in not applying a 50m penalty against Swans player Warner, given the immediacy of the free being paid, the siren sounding and the BALL BEING KICKED INTO THE CROWD”.

THE BALL GOT KICKED ONTO THE ROOF OF THE SCG BY A PLAYER WHO JUST GAVE AWAY A FREE KICK!

Rob Sitch’s character continues “It is the same discretion often used around the ground when umpires don’t believe a player has heard the whistle and kicks the ball.”

Yet discretion isn’t a word you’ll find in the rule book. And of course, in those instances where players do play on, $210 worth of premium Australian leather doesn’t end up on the roof of the SCG.

You want common sense, AFL? Through the need to have players, and all followers of the game, respect the umpires’ decisions through behaviours that are not angry and spit filled, you’ve shifted its foundation, one built on passion and emotion, to punish players for very normal acts of body language, and if umpire respect, good-boy-aesthetics, and positively impacting the next generation of stars to behave in a non-dissenting-robotic-manner is the new world order, then you have to pay 50m when THE BALL GETS KICKED ONTO THE ROOF OF THE SCG BY A PLAYER WHO JUST GAVE AWAY A FREE KICK!

I heard Mark Robinson saying that you can’t buy that type of theatre, that the above mess was great to watch *and pensioners should be going into debt to sign up to pay tv for the privilege.

Personally, I saw it very differently. For me, it was everything wrong with our game right now. The wildly inconsistent officiating that saw an umpire five metres away from the above play not award a free kick to either play who got hit high, but the non-officiating umpire, standing 75m away from the play, used his supreme vision to miss the first, pay the second, and was deemed a hero by the AFL for doing so.

The player who gave away the free kick, then roosts the ball over a grandstand, which has the controlling umpire wanting to pay a 50m penalty, but is overridden again, by the same non-officiating umpire who overrode him only moments before.  

Discretion and interpretation in full flight.

The level of dissent on offer from the Richmond players, in reaction to the non 50m, was enough to have the free kick reversed and so many 50m penalties paid to the Swans they would have had to pay the Sydney Bridge toll as Lance Franklin lined up for goal from Manly.

No wonder crowd numbers have dropped each week from the round 1 average attendance of 40,321. Round nine plummeted to 25,416 and the yearly average is the lowest it’s been in 26 years, 30,517.

This level of ridiculousness must be playing a part.

With the final word, AFL Umpires Boss, the character played by Rob Sitch “*Huge congratulation to Matt Stevic for achieving the most free kicks paid in a three-week span, a record we know will be broken again by Matt in three weeks’ time.”

Satire. All of it is wildly inconsistent and nonsensical.

*Denotes made up quote in the name of satire.

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