AFL umpires have reportedly requested that Champion Data not publish specific details surrounding free kicks paid.

Kane Cornes has detected that the free kicks awarded by specific match officials is no longer available on the stats portal.

He wonders why the umpiring fraternity have asked for these statistics to be removed.

“I love to keep the umpires accountable when it comes to which umpire has paid which free kick,” Cornes said on SEN’s Fireball.

“I think that is very useful information.

“You’ve got four umpires out there, I like to know that such and such umpire has paid 11 free kicks to North and three frees to West Coast, for example.

“That information has always been readily available to those who have access to Champion Data stats.

“I like seeing the breakdown of which umpire out there has paid a free kick to which team.”

Cornes continued: “I can tell you now, that information is not available anymore.

“Where has that info gone? Surely it’s pretty important stuff.

“I reached out to Champion Data to find out where this information has gone. They said to me that the umpires got in contact with Champion and said we now do not need that information.

“This is the greatest example of how soft we have become. You can’t have player weights in the Footy Record any more, the umpires now do not want to be, clearly, kept accountable for who has paid which free kick to which team.

“How could this not be useful information for the umpires’ coach to go, ‘Hang on, see that free kick? You paid that to West Coast, we can now break down what’s gone on there and review that’.

“They have got in touch with Champion Data. My suspicion would be that they’re too scared to be made accountable for this information, if there’s a lopsided free kick count and we want to keep them accountable.

“That information is gone. I honestly cannot believe that the umpires would be that sensitive to not make that info available when the profession has never been more highly paid, when everyone else has never been more accountable.

“We’ve spoken about under-fire coaches and players, but the umpires do not want have that accountability. I can’t believe it.

“It needs to be investigated further as to who has made that decision and why this decision has been made. It’d got to be more than ‘this information isn’t necessary anymore’.”

Co-host David King added: ”Who are you protecting the information from? It’s the fans’ game, isn’t it?

“They’re just conversation points, they’re bullet points in our Monday discussions, and you’re just part of the cycle.

“There’ll be good weeks and bad weeks but that’s the game.”

King was also made aware of another statistic that is being kept from Champion Data users and it relates to the stand rule and 50-metre penalties paid.

“At the start of the year when we were having the stand rule discussion, I wanted to know how many 50s were paid last year from a violation of the stand rule,” King said.

“Not an outrageous request.

“Do you think they would give me that information? ‘It’s not a Champion Data thing, it’s an AFL thing’ - they wouldn’t give it to us.

“I just wanted to compare has it doubled, tripled, what’s happening with it? I want to use the facts and I can’t get them.

“Who are we hiding that information and why?”

Cornes said further: “Why are they the only people in the game who are protected from scrutiny? Why do they get protected so much?

“I understand we want junior umpires coming through but they’ll come through. You get paid nearly $200,000 if you’re any good and you can work outside of that.

“It’s a pretty good profession. You get to keep fit, you’re in a great game in a terrific industry. The young umpires will come through.

“I don’t understand why they are immune from scrutiny and we can’t get information that is necessary to keep these people accountable for the fans and the game.”

That is very telling, what are they afraid off?? I would have liked to see who was paying the Freo frees vs Dees a more interesting stat would be free kicks not paid and how come you can now throw the bloody ball or drop it and not get penalised or how a bout picking a player up and displaying him to your supporters and getting nothing, very dangerous stuff indeed.

Don't actually blame them. The amount of vitriol they would receive for doing their jobs, why give another stat that out of context can be used to abuse them by fans that take nothing but the raw number of frees paid against their team as a personal affront.

This is really poor by the AFL and is example of losing trust with stakeholders. They need to be transparent and enable constructive criticism and conversation. I’m seeing this happen in normal life as well, where you can’t criticise particular people or groups. It’s very dangerous

Thanks very much for highlighting this silly request.

It's the people's game.

Us supporters pay for mships., tix ( and all of the add ons by the outlets), parking, footy records, high cost food and drinks, merch, kayo and other costs.

I feel we deserve to know this info

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or how a bout picking a player up and displaying him to your supporters and getting nothing, very dangerous stuff indeed.

Deeezone

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Thank you Dz. That could have gone sideways in so many ways . Voss is a flat out bully and there is absolutely no place for that type of idiocy in our game. Did it get referred to anything?

He would surely hands down, hold the village [censored] title of any town. In fact , I think there's some old footage of one of his ancestors attending a conference, before they changed the family name......

Take a look at this video, https://share.google/hercVZBk6pUISzDoV

Edited March 23Mar 23 by Previously known as LITD.

If one umpire has paid 10 x HTB and 3 other umpires paid 0x HTBs then that is not only useful information but imperative information and the AFL need to know this to correct the imbalance.

Also important for us the consumers, to know how corrupted/biased the umpiring is. Lack of transparency is simply a recipe for speculation to abound about motives, irregularities etc.

6 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

If one umpire has paid 10 x HTB and 3 other umpires paid 0x HTBs then that is not only useful information but imperative information and the AFL need to know this to correct the imbalance.

Also important for us the consumers, to know how corrupted/biased the umpiring is. Lack of transparency is simply a recipe for speculation to abound about motives, irregularities etc.

These don't have to be even. They would be operating in different parts of the ground and would be presented with different situations. Fans, such as yourself, seeing this a being something that needs to be 'corrected' is one of the main reasons why this would be being done. This is even more true given the ramifications that these may have on the private lives of umpires.

The number of free kicks paid by each number is not useful information that adds to the game at all. The fact that this information was apparently available before but I've never heard it spoken about before tells me what I need to know about it. It isn't some huge conspiracy it's just looking out for the wellbeing of the people umpiring.

5 minutes ago, Axis of Bob said:

The number of free kicks paid by each number is not useful information that adds to the game at all.

I think that's true...it's a bit of a beat up by Kane as usual.

Find a common ground, umpire hating and go for it.

Can't go wrong with that one.

35 minutes ago, Axis of Bob said:

These don't have to be even. They would be operating in different parts of the ground and would be presented with different situations. Fans, such as yourself, seeing this a being something that needs to be 'corrected' is one of the main reasons why this would be being done. This is even more true given the ramifications that these may have on the private lives of umpires.

The number of free kicks paid by each number is not useful information that adds to the game at all. The fact that this information was apparently available before but I've never heard it spoken about before tells me what I need to know about it. It isn't some huge conspiracy it's just looking out for the wellbeing of the people umpiring.

The stats also don't show differences in game styles that result in more frees. From memory, Richmond gave away a lot of frees in their good years, simply due to the game style they played. Tigers fans still see this as deliberate corruption on behalf of the AFL and umpires.

I don't believe umpires purposefully pay dodgy frees against certain teams. Provided the AFL get these stats and they are used to coach umpires, I don't see it as an issue

Tricky thread, this one. It feels that posters are being forced to take a position that's either pro-Kane Cornes or pro-umpires.

3 hours ago, Axis of Bob said:

These don't have to be even. They would be operating in different parts of the ground and would be presented with different situations. Fans, such as yourself, seeing this a being something that needs to be 'corrected' is one of the main reasons why this would be being done. This is even more true given the ramifications that these may have on the private lives of umpires.

The number of free kicks paid by each number is not useful information that adds to the game at all. The fact that this information was apparently available before but I've never heard it spoken about before tells me what I need to know about it. It isn't some huge conspiracy it's just looking out for the wellbeing of the people umpiring.

No they don't have to be even.

But if one umpire is consistently paying, say, a HTB decision and others aren't there on the surface would appear to be a clear difference in interpretation. But if you don't get the data - and the umps have apparently said they don't want it - then how would anyone know?

In such an interpretive set of rules it is imperative that the umpires are relatively consistent in their application and without data no one knows.

But let's be frank here. The AFL/umps don't want it because it leads to criticism of their performance and their running of the game. Just like they fought for years to not allow umps to have stats before casting a Brownlow vote. It wasn't until the criticism was so loud and the mistakes so blatant that they did something about it.

Kane be like "Stop taking away my easy targets"

4 hours ago, Axis of Bob said:

These don't have to be even. They would be operating in different parts of the ground and would be presented with different situations. Fans, such as yourself, seeing this a being something that needs to be 'corrected' is one of the main reasons why this would be being done. This is even more true given the ramifications that these may have on the private lives of umpires.

The number of free kicks paid by each number is not useful information that adds to the game at all. The fact that this information was apparently available before but I've never heard it spoken about before tells me what I need to know about it. It isn't some huge conspiracy it's just looking out for the wellbeing of the people umpiring.

Agreed.

However, you would hope that the umpiring director/coach and the AFL would make use of these stats, even if nobody else can see them.

For instance, it would be useful information to find which of your umpires are more susceptible to crowd noise – i.e. the hometown support in Perth, Adelaide, and against some Vic based teams.

It really doesn’t affect the fans too much – everyone already thinks the umpires are rubbish😀. A few favourable statistics are not going to change that, but hiding the statistics might bring out even more conspiracy theorists.

5 hours ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

This is really poor by the AFL and is example of losing trust with stakeholders. They need to be transparent and enable constructive criticism and conversation. I’m seeing this happen in normal life as well, where you can’t criticise particular people or groups. It’s very dangerous

Go on..

3 hours ago, Bowserpower said:

Go on..

Haha footy forum so I’m leaving that where it is!

10 hours ago, DeeZone said:

That is very telling, what are they afraid off?? I would have liked to see who was paying the Freo frees vs Dees a more interesting stat would be free kicks not paid and how come you can now throw the bloody ball or drop it and not get penalised or how a bout picking a player up and displaying him to your supporters and getting nothing, very dangerous stuff indeed.

Too right DZ.

The standard of umpiring is pathetic. Yes, a it’s difficult job and the ever changing Rules make it even harder. However all too often it appears they don’t want to blow their whistle for fear of embarrassment because the play has moved on, in essence they’re not able to keep up because the game is just too fast for them.

Or maybe they’re just following AFL instructions in order to keep the game moving fast.

Who would know?

Also, very concerning is the amount of blatant throws not being penalised this year. Hard to understand how umpires have missed them.

It so disappointing that the game I have idolised for so many decades is now largely unrecognisable.

Indicative of life itself. Such is life.

10 hours ago, Mickey said:

Don't actually blame them. The amount of vitriol they would receive for doing their jobs, why give another stat that out of context can be used to abuse them by fans that take nothing but the raw number of frees paid against their team as a personal affront.

While I understand this, releasing that statistic could also work the other way - disproving a persons theory/accusation that a certain umpire/s pay specific teams more free kicks (when they don’t). I think supporters, in a legal and foundational sense being the custodians of the game, should be able to see the stat.

Edited March 23Mar 23 by Ethan Tremblay

This is such a non-issue. CD has confirmed it was CD that suggested this information is removed, not the umpires. They found they were often attributing the free kick to the wrong umpire because it wasn't clear which umpire actually paid the mark or it was multiple umpires making/confirming a decision.

The discourse around team free kick totals is bad enough - I personally can't see any value in having umpire-specific data in the public domain.