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Chapter 1: What does Gerard think about the current state of AFL umpiring?
Vossi, can you please ask Gerard about his statement during the Dockers and Geelong game that the AFL umpiring is currently diabolical? He repeated that argument last night on AFL 360. Did the men in black suits and the big van pull up at Gerard's house in the early hours of the morning and take him to the AFL house dungeon for re-education? That's from Paramat.
Paramat asking this question, Gerard. Please respond.
Yeah, I don't have any hesitation in critiquing what's happening with the rules or the umpiring at the moment. So separate to the natural carping around individual decisions, I think there's a lot of work to be done around umpiring and especially on the rules. But separate to that, if you take one step back.
We have four field umpires in each game, and we have nine professional games across the code every weekend, plus an emergency umpire. I think there's a real conversation around, is there actually the depth of umpire to officiate those games at the moment. Some of what I saw in the Giants Carlton game, I've never seen officiating like it in a professional sport. It was totally unacceptable.
And so this has, we went to a four umpire system because it's better in the setup on the ground structurally, but I'm not sure that we have the competence for it. So I think there's a conversation in going back to three umpires for a couple of years. growing the depth, and then reinstituting it once you're there.
Because on the evidence that I'm seeing this year, I just think we've overshot what we have the personnel for.
19 teams in 2028. I'm doing the math. That's minimum 76, and you'd have a certain number. So you've got, what, upwards of 80 or 90 teams?
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Chapter 2: What issues exist with the depth of AFL umpires?
To pick from, to pick your top four every week.
I think that's what you want to get to. It's quite a shallow pool at the moment, and it is protected by a CBA, and I'm not sure that that's actually best. So they need to expand their base to get a better level of game-to-game officiating. We have Adam Simpson, who's joined us this year at Premiership Coach.
He's got the saying, the Sunday umpires, because the games are rated a level of importance. And if you're on the Sunday game, which is not as important as the others, you get the Sunday umpires. Except that... It's a professional game. So I have a problem with the L plate umpires being on. That's where I'm sitting there.