Cale Matthews, BTN Reporter: A couple of years ago, I rocked up late to my midweek basketball game after going to the wrong stadium. I subbed into the game midway through the second quarter, got called for two offensive fouls, argued with the umpire, got a tech foul, argued again, got my second tech foul and was ejected from the stadium before halftime. Hmm. As you can tell from these messages, I was frustrated. I think everyone who has played sport has had a moment of frustration like this, but these outbursts are creating bigger problems in community sport.
Bailey Dyer, Referee for Basketball SA: There's definitely been heated arguments and stuff off the court and people getting reported and tribunals and, you know, parents being banned for a certain amount of weeks or time or seasons. But I've definitely seen people take extended breaks and just step away for a little while because like, mentally they just, they can't do it anymore.
Bailey umpires district basketball in South Australia. He says the last year or so has been pretty disrupted.
Bailey: Having spent the best part of 11 or 12 years refereeing, this is the, over the last 12 months or so, is the first time that I've ever seen games actually cancelled, particularly at the district level due to shortages of referees and officials out there on, on game days.
For the record Bailey has umpired me as well. What am I like?
Bailey: Ah yeah, pretty good, pretty good for the most part.
Do I get out of control?
Bailey: Oh, I would say occasionally. Yeah, definitely.
Earlier this year, Basketball SA said they were missing a third of their regular umpires and teams have had their games postponed or even cancelled throughout the year. Experts say it's not just basketball though.
Stirling Sharpe, PhD Candidate: There are a lot of different sports and competitions that are struggling to find enough umpires on a week-to-week basis. I mean, almost every sport has an example of that around the country. My name is Sterling Sharpe. I'm a lecturer in Sport Management at the University of Canberra and completing a PhD focusing on match officials.
According to Stirling sports are struggling for a few main reasons.
Stirling: Some of them come down to the player base expanding too quickly. We're seeing that a lot with women's sport, particularly AFL and Rugby Union and NRL and all those newer women's sports so to speak. We also just see people leaving the volunteering world and umpires are you know classified as volunteers and people just aren't as willing to give up their time. But then the big ones that we normally think about the abuse that referees and umpires are subject to almost every single game.
Michaela, Junior SANFL Umpire: I've seen people that have started especially younger, and then after a few games, and have gone I don't really want to umpire anymore because we just get yelled at every week, like people don't respect us. It's hard to do it. It definitely is hard to do it.
Michaela is a junior umpire at the South Australian National Football League. She says umpire abuse can get out of hand.
Michaela, Junior SANFL Umpire: Some people can get really upset and aggressive towards the umpires and maybe cross the boundary and come onto the field, which has never happened to me personally, but I've definitely heard stories about it happening to other people out there, and it's something really scary, especially for younger kids.
Sitrling: Umpire abuse has become far more common in the last few years, particularly over COVID. You know, people have had so many different pressures put on them and I think when people get on the sport field, it's a, it's one place where it's become accepted to release your emotions, to release your anger and match officials are often the people that are in the firing line for that.
Across the country. Some amateur leagues have tried to come up with ways to tackle the issue, including different whistles for underage umpires and launching different campaigns against abuse.
Stirling: We've seen, I mean season long campaigns like a season of respect and generally when those sorts of initiatives happen they have, you know great results, the players tend to enjoy themselves more, and the match officials certainly do as well.
Bailey: Referees have different coloured shirts or different types of uniforms that they're wearing to try and distinguish that they're still learning and coming through and you know, maybe take it a little bit easier on these guys
Michaela: In the SANFL we have something called a blue card in the SANFL juniors which we can use if we feel that spectators, that abuse is just over the top like they're yelling threats or things like that. We can use the blue card which gets them kicked out.
Eleni Tee, AFL and AFLW Umpire: But also nationally, we've got lots of different leagues, trying different things about making sure reminding people as we know that umpires are just humans, they're doing the best they can and they're gonna make mistakes.
Eleni Tee umpires in the AFL and AFLW and is currently the only female umpire in the men's game.
Commentator: Eleni gets to bounce the ball in the middle of Etihad Stadium for the first time.
She says, even in the big leagues, there is immense pressure on umpires.
Eleni: For me, it's pretty easy to identify when I'm on the field. So at the moment being the only girl field umpire in the AFL, and so, you know, people will say, ‘oh you know, that was the girl that maybe made that mistake.’
Commentator: Bang for the goal! He’s got it!
But also the fact that now at AFL level, you've got 17 different cameras, and you know how many football shows, talking about your decisions and talking about football all day, every day.
Presenter, The Footy Show: It’s as big of a mistake as I can remember.
So that mental side of things about being really strong and resilient, um, does come into it really significantly.
Eleni says rules against umpire abuse that the AFL has implemented has had an affect on junior leagues.
Eleni: By the AFL demonstrating that this type of behaviour is not acceptable, people see that and they understand okay, well this is how I should behave or if I don't, I'm going to be penalised.
Referee: If I hear you shouting for anything again, I will be penalising you. This is not soccer. Is that clear?
Stirling: So the culture of questioning referees or abusing them directly to their face is different in every sport.
NRL Player: Who you call that to? The Captain calls it.
Stirling: I think rugby is a great example where there's a lot more respect um, and you'll often hear players calling the umpire Sir, asking a respectful question and just accepting the decision, whatever it might be. I mean, we need the cooperation of a lot of people to change culture. It's going to be the players, the captains, the coaches, the clubs themselves, and the governing body or the organising body for competition
Just like players make mistakes, so do umpires.
Michaela: These people umpiring are just humans, of course they're going to make mistakes. They're not going to be right on the ball every time and if the spectators are thinking that they would be right making their decisions all the time as an umpire, then they are wrong.
While there is a long way to go to completely stamp out umpire abuse and fix umpire shortages. Everyone I spoke to said the positives of umpiring outweigh the negatives
Eleni: For young people especially it's about developing confidence, resilience, all those different things that you know, you won't necessarily learn in everyday life.
Michaela: I'd say if you're nervous for umpiring just give it a shot. Some of the things that I've learned through being an umpire is a good communication, especially with adult, adults, especially because as a child, it can be hard to talk to older people and communicate effectively.
Bailey: Everyone's allowed to have emotion. We're all human, you know? You're not making all your shots. I'm not, I'm not calling it 100 percent all the time. So yeah, the human aspect I think if more people understand that, or more people communicate like humans, um, we get on so much better.
I promise not to yell at you next time you ref me.
Bailey: Thanks mate.
We’ll see though.
Across the country lots of amateur sports are struggling to find enough umpires for their games. We look at why there is such a referee drought.
Learning Area | Description |
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Health and Physical Education, Years 7 and 8 (v8.4) | Analyse factors that influence emotions, and develop strategies to demonstrate empathy and sensitivity (ACPPS075) |
Health and Physical Education, Years 9 and 10 (v8.4) | Examine the role physical activity, outdoor recreation and sport play in the lives of Australians and investigate how this has changed over time (ACPMP104) |
Health and Physical Education, Years 7 and 8 (v9.0) | Investigate strategies that influence how communities value diversity and propose actions they can take to promote inclusion in their communities (AC9HP8P05) |
Health and Physical Education, Years 7 and 8 (v9.0) | Investigate modifications to equipment, rules and scoring systems that support fair play and inclusive participation (AC9HP8M08) |