Amateur sports struggling to find umpires due to abuse
16 million Australians play sport, but many codes are facing a big problem: referee shortages. Referees say it can be hard to attract young people to the job, because of the abuse they often receive from spectators, players and coaches.
Transcript
00:00 I'm happy to admit that I have shown a bit of frustration towards umpires in the past
00:07 and perhaps let my emotions kind of spill over, I guess.
00:11 Happy to admit that.
00:12 But what umpires are saying, and particularly young umpires are saying, is that this abuse
00:17 is kind of getting out of hand.
00:19 And it's been on the rise over the last few years.
00:22 And it's not just abuse from players, it's from spectators, it's from coaches as well,
00:27 people on the sidelines, parents.
00:29 And what they're saying is that it's really kind of detrimental to their burgeoning referee
00:35 careers.
00:36 And not only that, it's impacting their mental health.
00:39 And a lot of young referees aren't sticking around, and that's leading to umpire shortages.
00:45 For this story, I chatted to a couple of young umpires and just talked a little bit about
00:49 their experience.
00:50 So let's take a look.
00:52 I've seen people that have started, especially younger, and then after a few games or even
00:58 maybe the year's ended, and they've gone, "I don't really want to umpire anymore because
01:02 we just get yelled at every week.
01:05 People don't respect us.
01:06 It's hard to do it."
01:09 It definitely is hard to do it.
01:10 I've definitely seen people take extended breaks and just step away for a little while
01:14 because mentally they just can't do it anymore.
01:18 For me, it's pretty easy to identify when I'm on the field.
01:21 Still at the moment being the only girlfield umpire in the AFL.
01:23 And so you know people will say, "Oh, that was the girl that maybe made that mistake."
01:27 Referees have different colour shirts or different types of uniforms that they're wearing to
01:33 try and distinguish that they're still learning and coming through and maybe take it a little
01:37 bit easier on these guys.
01:38 These people umpiring are just humans.
01:40 Of course they're going to make mistakes.
01:42 They're not going to be right on the ball every time.
01:44 And if the spectators are thinking that they would be right making their decisions all
01:49 the time as an umpire, then they are wrong.
01:52 Certainly in footy, we've seen campaigns like a season of respect, and that's in rugby as
01:56 well where you know making sure you are respecting the umpires, but also specific to rounds.
02:02 So silent rounds in footy where you're not allowed to really talk back to umpires.
02:06 Also sit down rounds, and that one's more for spectators, making sure they don't get
02:11 up out of their seat and get emotional and that sort of thing.
02:15 In Victoria recently, basketball umpires who are under 18 have been given green whistles
02:21 to kind of identify that they are under 18.
02:24 They're still learning.
02:25 Give them a go.
02:27 But I think the biggest thing from talking to all of the young refs within the story,
02:32 it was just remembering that they're humans.
02:35 You know, when I play basketball, I don't make all of my shots.
02:39 Referees don't call it 100% of the time.
02:41 So just remember that they're humans.
02:43 Show some respect and it's going to go a long way to retaining refs and fixing the shortage.
02:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]