Eddie McGuire Explains His Idea To Revolutionise AFL Umpiring

Eddie McGuire has pitched an idea to revolutionise umpiring in the AFL on the Hot Breakfast this morning.

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“When you watch the umpires walk out, Darce, of any game, it’s almost like a whole team is running on to the ground,” Eddie said.

“What is there, 10 umpires? There’s four boundary umpires, three field umpires, an emergency umpire and two goal umpires.

“Of the 10, only three can actually officiate as far as giving free kicks away.

Ed suggested that all umpires should be allowed to officiate on free kicks.

“Your idea is to get all umpires able to blow the whistle… two goal umpires at either end, boundary umpires who can blow the whistle,” Luke Darcy asked.

“Everyone’s an umpire,” Eddie confirmed.

“If you think of the way Alastair Clarkson sets up his grid… what we do, we put the umpires under enormous physical pressure.

“The top end umpires now, largely there’s a big group of them that are over 40, and what we need to do is keep these guys who are the best officiating umpires in the game as long as possible.

“If you think of Alastair Clarkson’s grid, that’s all you want. The umpires should only be moving at best 20 metres one way or the other.

“So the ball comes down, you move across, so there’s an umpire on the boundary line and there’s an umpire in the corridor… there’s two behind the goals, but they can also see boundary line decision up to basically the 30.

“You’ve got another umpire on the 45 who’s sitting there who moves across one way or up and down the ground.

“So you’ve got two on the 50 if you like at each end, and one obviously goes in, balls it up and then runs out.”

Hot Breakfast listeners called in with their thoughts on the idea.

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