The Age is running a story today (alluding to new CBA negotiations between the AFL Umpires Association and the AFL) under the headline “AFL umpires may turn professional in new deal”.
Amongst the arrangements under discussion, umpires could multi-task, as in boundary and goal umpires awarding free kicks and umpires could officiate in more than one game per weekend.
Association chief, and former VFL umpire, Bill Deller says, “The AFL are looking for … improved productivity. In our instance, improved productivity would be improved decisional accuracy.”
Accuracy is one thing, Bill, but for AussieRulesBlog the key to improved umpiring productivity would be improved consistency and a reduction in guesswork and assumption.
We’re not sure how a fully-professional umpire would fill his or her day, although we’ll quickly concede that the demands of elite level umpiring are in conflict with full-time high-level paid work.
Could we see an umpiring version of Fev if fully-professional umpires had too much free time on their hands? No, you’re right. That’s completely at odds with the mentality required to be an umpire in the first place!
All jokes aside, we think more time for physical preparation, practicing decision making, reviewing video and, potentially, more game time can only be good for the game. The rider must always be consistency though.
And since we’re on the consistency issue, it would be useful for the AFL to find some way to inform patrons actually sitting in the seats at the stadium about decisions made by umpires — through the scoreboard would seem to be the obvious route.
This is especially the case where a free kick is paid for an off-the-ball infringement. When you’re sitting at the game it can be intensely mystifying when the ball is called back 100 metres and gifted to the other team.
Can we wait until Steve McBurney retires for multi-game professionalism? The thought of him wandering around twice each weekend makes the hairs on the back of our neck crawl.
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