Wayne Campbell on why inconsistency is unavoidable at the tribunal and in umpiring
Idea
Updated ,first published
Updated ,first published
The match review officer and the court are doing a largely good job. These are not words that are said often, and I say them despite the fiasco of the past weeks.
1980s premiership coach and worldly philosopher Tony Jewell used to say that “in coaching you need to get at least 90 per cent of your decisions right”.
I took this to mean that you don’t need to be perfect, although you should be very good. If we take this as a passing score, we can present a case where MRO does well.
But like refereeing, we tend to overlook correct decisions, thinking they are outdated and shining the brightest lights on any mistakes, real or perceived.
I have experienced the AFL’s judicial system from a number of different perspectives, including as a player, in club roles and within the AFL.
Six months after starting my job as a referee in the AFL, I was walking up the stairs at AFL House when I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that the only thing expected from referees in football is consistency. – was completely unachievable.
Here are three reasons why.
- We make decisions based on the color of the scarf we wear. Our game is tribal and that’s what makes it great. It also makes us completely irrational.
- Most people don’t know the rules (including me before I started refereeing). It is difficult to determine whether a decision is right or wrong if your starting point is wrong.
- Referees make mistakes.
As a football manager you get a first-hand look at the system and for the most part I don’t have many complaints about the results.
Bitter disappointment emerged only once. This happened with the homophobic slur incident on Wil Powell while he was with the Suns in 2024, and recent events have made it seem even more unfair.
Four weeks before Wil’s accusation, Port Adelaide’s Jeremy Finlayson was suspended for three matches for using homophobic slurs on the field. Will received five matches despite there being no significant difference in pay. It felt patently unfair that Wil was shown no mercy whatsoever. Of course, most of our compassion should and does go to the victim and the LGBTQ+ community, but we must not forget that the perpetrator is human too.
Six weeks later, St Kilda’s Lance Collard received a six-game ban for the same reason. He has now been found guilty of a second offense and, after initially being banned for seven weeks, was effectively sentenced to two weeks’ imprisonment on appeal.
We live in the dark and each scenario may be different, but this inconsistency cannot be allowed to continue. The appeals chairman explained that some of the inconsistency in his findings could be due to previous cases being agreements between the player and the AFL, whereas this case was the first to go to court.
Although the punishment is justified in some respects, it reveals a flaw in the process.
And the fact that the former chairman of the appeal panel said something that contradicts the message the AFL is trying to send suggests there is a deeper organizational problem for AFL House to explore.
A court member calling Zak Butters’ hearing from his car wasn’t the court’s finest moment, but that’s also an organizational problem, not a decision-making problem.
Behind the hysteria, they come to the correct conclusion 90 percent of the time.
This brings me to my own experience as an actor. In the second round of 2001 my Tigers were playing a red-hot Western Bulldogs at the MCG. In the first five minutes, Tony Liberatore hit an off-the-ball shot from Matthew Knights. It was a country football hit; ugly. I saw this and was the first to object. “Libba” is a warrior; I’m not. He put one on my chin.
This was my second game as captain and having taken the reins in a strange handover from Matthew just a few months earlier, there were plenty of reasons to ‘fly the flag’. I tried…with bad effect. First lesson in leadership: Don’t try to be someone you’re not.
After the match, coach Danny Frawley asked who saw the incident. So I said I had it.
As captain, the club asked me to do media. “What do you want me to say?” I asked the relevant people. “Tell me you didn’t see it,” came the reply.
First lesson in media management: don’t have the media report on the one person who saw the incident and then have them say they didn’t see it.
It was the most talked about topic of the weekend. It had reached fever pitch on Monday.
If the incident had been recorded on video, my role in the series would have ended. It wasn’t.
Matty and I were called into a meeting with our CEO Mark Brayshaw and Danny. The AFL had called. There was no vision. If anyone saw the incident, the AFL will want them to be witnesses in court.
I had entered the meeting thinking the “players’ code” (what happens on the field, stays on the field) was alive. The AFL pressure didn’t worry me too much, but what “Knighta” wanted did. He wanted the truth to be told. So it was decided that I would tell my version of events, that is, tell the truth. This has never happened before in such a large case.
While I was explaining what happened in the meeting, I drew on the board, where I was, etc. I showed it. All my information was correct… except the wrong part. I couldn’t be told otherwise until I saw the title on tape.
I assume this is due to adrenaline, shock, stress or something like that. Two people’s versions of the same event can be very different; even though neither of them knowingly lied. Sound familiar?
This was the most famous court case I was a part of. I felt strangely calm as I walked into the hearing. Chairman Brian Collis asked what happened, and I told him as I remembered it. It was as if the air had left the room a bit. I understood the seriousness and consequences, but felt that the truth outside of a court hearing was not a bad starting point. “Libba” was suspended for five matches.
What were the consequences for me? Not much, I must say. At our next game against the Bulldogs, Paul Dimattina called me a “snitch.” He had a restaurant in Lygon Street; I used to eat there occasionally. I didn’t know what it meant until I watched it the sopranos years later.
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Wayne Campbell is a former Richmond captain and All-Australian, former Gold Coast football manager and current Sydney Swans academy boss.
