The standard of AFL umpiring is as good as ever despite widespread outcry, AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon says.
Dillon is staunchly defending new umpires chief Steve McBurney and his cohort amid criticism of decisions influencing the outcome of several games this season.
“I spend a lot of time with the umpires, talking to Steve McBurney who’s heading it up, but also individual umpires,” Dillon told reporters in Adelaide on Tuesday.
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“Our umpires, it’s an incredibly tough game to umpire, but we’ve got elite decision-makers, they’re elite athletes, but they continue to work their craft.
“All sports are really difficult to officiate, but I think our sport is one of the hardest ones.
“What our focus on is actually just preparing our umpires and making sure we get the processes right and continue to umpire as well as we can.
“It’s as good as it’s ever been, the umpiring.
“We’re in the second year on the four-umpire system as well, so we’re on a journey with the four-umpire system.”
Dillon said the recent focus on umpiring decisions was a by-product of the closeness of the league.
“The competition is so tight,” he said.
“I don’t understand why, but there’s always been a focus on umpiring — I’m pretty old and it has been around for as long as I’ve been around and will continue to be.
“But I think because the competition is so tight that maybe there is an increased focus on the umpires.”
However, fans were astounded when they heard Dillon’s defence.
Much of the criticism has followed a mid-season interpretation change to the holding-the-ball rule after an early backlash from clubs and fans.
In May, the AFL directed umpires to shorten the “reasonable time’‘ component of the rule after a range of coaches expressed confusion at how the law was being implemented.
While the change has come in, there is still confusion among fans and interpretation seems to vary within games.
Even Essendon coach Brad Scott — who previously worked at the AFL — has questioned the interpretation of that rule after his team was on the wrong end of some questionable calls on Saturday night.
“Don’t recall in previous years having to come out every week and clear up which (decisions) were wrong and right,” one fan said on X (formerly Twitter) after Dillon’s umpire defence.
“Think Andrew is ruffling some feathers on purpose here,” another said.
“I genuinely think it’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” another said.
“This cannot be real,” another said.
And another: “He doesn’t even believe that.”
And another: “Everyone would respect the AFL a lot more if they came out and said, ‘yeah we need to improve it a bit,’ instead of saying, ‘na it’s been good as,’ lol.”
While another said: “They are in total denial. No problem exists because they refuse to admit or acknowledge it. Line-in-sand moment as to whether the media and fans are willing to accept this or push back hard.”
And another fan just called Dillon’s defence a “laughable statement”.
The AFL hierarchy has in some instances this season publicly admitted mistakes in days following contentious calls.
But after the Essendon game on the weekend, the league went to ground, despite many people expecting they would come and admit the umpires had made a mistake when giving Geelong a free kick for a deliberate rushed behind.
“What we said at the start of the year is that we’re going to continue to be transparent, but we don’t want to be up every Monday talking about umpiring decisions,” Dillon said.
“If there are umpiring decisions at the end of games, and there’s a real focus on them, then we’re happy to be up.
“But what we really want to focus on is performance. We have got an incredible competition, we have got amazing football being played, so that’s our focus.
“If there is a need to come out and talk to an umpire decision we will do that, but we’re not going to be doing it every week … hopefully we don’t have to come out any weekend and do it.”
Dillon said the AFL was still open to changing or tweaking rules.
“If we see something that should be changed, then we’ll change it,” he said.
“We don’t want to be just holding on to something just for the sake of it.”
– With Cameron Noakes
