Leading journalist Caroline Wilson says it’s “astounding” that nobody at the AFL read the full report which detailed the horrifying verbal and physical abuse female umpires were exposed to.
A research paper sent to the AFL last year came to light this week which detailed the experiences of female umpires, who said the abuse they received from both peers and spectators made them reconsider their future in the sport.
One umpire revealed she quit because she was sexually abused.
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“Umpires during games would inappropriately touch me, like when we’re umpiring together and things like that,” the report said.
“So, that’s what made me quit that level of umpiring because I thought it was too inappropriate, and I didn’t know what to do about it at the time.”
Speaking on Nine’s Footy Classified, Wilson said the AFL’s response to the report wasn’t good enough.
“The AFL commissions a report into the shortage of women umpires and then fails for seven months to actually read the report,” she said.
“The damning revelations … actually sat in the laptops of senior AFL personnel … since preliminary final day last year.
“And what an underwhelming public response from the AFL communications team.”
Wilson noted that while the details of the report were troubling, equally bewildering is the fact that nobody high up at the AFL seemingly made the effort to read beyond the executive summary.
“Because the academics who wrote the report buried the lead, and the more hideous revelations were pages in, nobody of any influence at head office actually saw red flags flying,” she explained.
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“Teenage girls forced to share changing rooms with middle aged men. Women umpires verbally abused and sexually harassed.
“I actually believe the AFL when they say they didn’t conceal this report, or try to bury it.
“But equally disturbing is the fact that nobody cared enough about this women’s issue to actually have a look at it.”
Asked for her reaction to the way the AFL handled the report, Wilson’s response was blunt.
“Angry,” she said.
“It’s all very well to say that the AFL have been going through COVID-19, and that there’s been cutbacks and that they were busy last year trying to get the season on the go.
“To commission a report and pay for it …. nobody actually read the full report. It’s just astounding.
“To say now the commission’s doing something about it, the game’s putting money into this and other women’s issues is frankly horrifying to me.”
The first female field umpire in the AFL, Eleni Glouftsis, wrote in the foreword of the paper that she hoped the study would help make the sport more inclusive.
“In reading this research, I felt frustrated that girls and women in umpiring roles are still facing the same obstacles and challenges that I faced almost 16 years ago; I had hoped things would have improved. They certainly should have,” she said.
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