NO ROOM FOR ABUSE

THEY are the officials we are quick to villainise, but love them or hate them the fact remains that our great game of footy doesn’t exist without umpires. That it is getting harder to attract young umpires or keep them in the industry is a direct reflection of our failure as supporters. We have allowed the sport of umpire abuse to transcend theatre. We have forgotten that there are real people behind the whistles and they don’t deserve to be the target of verbal abuse for our own amusement.

In March, the crossed line of umpire abuse hit the headlines when a young woman officiating a local practice match was allegedly the target of sexist abuse that left her shaken and afraid. Last weekend, a supporter at the Colac District football match between Birregurra and Alvie was allegedly hurling so much abuse that other spectators intervened — prompting the abuser to allegedly produce a knife. It is no wonder that umpire participation rates are dropping when incidents escalate in this fashion.

Our umpires now have legitimate reason to be mindful of their safety at local football matches. We pride ourselves on the sense of community that local football fosters, and yet we are ostracising a key component in what makes our game tick through our poor crowd behaviour.

We need a zero-tolerance approach on incidents such as the one on the weekend. Anyone who directly threatens an umpire’s safety should be banned from attending our local leagues — unlike our umpires, we don’t need them to make our game great.