No sooner was
the AFL bashing the coaching fraternity over the head to dissuade any notion of acceptable
umpire bashing than the umpiring
“sainthood” finds itself embroiled in the kind of issue that cuts to the
very heart of the game – integrity. The
AFL was yesterday forced to investigate a serious allegation that if it doesn’t
imply umpiring bias, could at least suggest umpires aren’t impervious to
enjoying some poetic justice!

At Subiaco
Oval on Friday night, Fremantle beat St Kilda with a kick after the siren, but as has been explored thoroughly in the
TV media since, Fremantle scored five goals from free kicks during the game,
while the Saints had zip. And while it’s
easy to dissect such decisions in slow motion and endless
replays after the event, there’s no doubt Freo had the better of the ledger.

Later at Perth
airport while preparing to fly overnight back to Melbourne, Nine sports
journalist Tony Jones had an encounter with one of the officiating field umpires
from the game, Matthew Head, which he subsequently reported on a Nine news
bulletin as follows:

“While
boarding the midnight flight back to Melbourne, one of the umpires, within
earshot of several passengers, said: ‘Now I know what it feels like to have a
victory’. That umpire was Matthew Head
and the passenger he was speaking to was me.”

Jones’ account
was last night backed up by a Melbourne businessman, who clocked the same
conversation at the time and even went to the trouble of writing the same words
down on his boarding card. In response, the AFL initially said there was nothing to investigate, but rightly
both Matthew Head and his accompanying umpiring colleague Brett Allen, have
asked the league to formally conduct an investigation so they could clear their
names, after both men “emphatically” denied either made any such comments.

Given Jones’ impeccable reputation and association with Nine as
official TV broadcaster, the AFL is presented with a potentially nasty
outcome whatever its finding. One can only imagine the behind the
scenes politics of this as the league seeks to find an acceptable
compromise on such a potentially damaging issue. If as a result of this
inquiry the perception took hold that umpires are capable of bias or
get to gloat over their decision making; it would be disastrous.

It is
fundamental to our love of football that we believe umpires operate
without fear or favour. Nothing less is
acceptable or we are going to irretrievably damage the accepted social contract
between fans and umpires; that leaves us simply to agree to disagree at any given
point in a game.