Given the discrepancy in the free kick counts over the last few years, it would be remiss of the club not to have investigated the issue. As previously discussed, there are two obvious explanations for why the free kick counts are skewed:
i. We actually give away more free kicks, or put ourselves in a position where we receive fewer free kicks; or
ii. The umps are getting it consistently wrong in Freo games for some reason.
If it is the former, it is something at least one of the 87 assistant coaches should be looking at. Are we tackling correctly? Are our defenders holding too much? Do we get caught holding the ball more than other teams? Do we block off the ball more than other teams? Should we be diving more? That sort of thing.
If it is the umpires, how do we address it? Are certain umpires a problem? Do the umpires have a bias against certain players or Freo generally? Is there benefit in getting the umpires down to training as some other clubs do? That sort of thing.
People seem to assume that because the CEO / President / Coach aren’t publicly having a crack at the umpires /getting Supreme Court injunctions they aren’t doing enough to protect Freo’s interests. Well, it’s possible that’s the case, but in my view it is unlikely. Because, to my mind, when you are saying the clubs isn’t doing enough, here’s a rough list of implicit assumptions that are being made:
i. That we have not investigated the issue: To me this seems unlikely, given how much money is spent on footy departments chasing 1% advantages, and the propensity of umpiring to affect the game.
ii. That it is even possible to somehow demonstrate systematic bias: This seems to me to be incredibly difficult given that 10 people might see one decision 3 different ways. You simply can’t remove the subjectivity element to even decide whether so many free kicks (or unpaid kicks) are correct.
iii. That any investigation undertaken by Freo would actually uncover verifiable systematic bias: As discussed, it’s possible that some of the discrepancy could be explained by other causes (eg, we actually give away more).
iv. That time / resources being put into this would create a better outcome for the footy club that those time and resources being spent elsewhere (ie, would you want to spend $100,000 on investigating umpire bias, or on another scout?)
v. That although there is a system in place whereby clubs can liaise with the umpiring department – which for the most part this happens privately – no positive results have or will come from this, or that they have been explored fully.
vi. That there is some benefit that would come from publicly complaining. I’m not convinced about this. No club has ever come out and alleged systematic umpiring bias against their clubs, yet we are not the only club that gets seemingly imbalanced free kick numbers (Sydney springs to mind). Why is that? I’m not sure complaining would help.
vii. That there is no detriment to complaining: Roly keeps banging on about being a ‘no-excuses’ footy club. Does giving our players excuses for the failure of our club help or hurt us in the long-run? Are the AFL vindictive enough to actually make life harder for Freo? If the issue is that there aren’t enough good umpires, does it really help for clubs to be coming out bagging them?
There are probably more assumptions, and maybe some above can be dismissed. I’m not an expert. But actually going public with allegations of systematic bias would be huge step, and you’d want to satisfy yourself that it was worth it.
In any event, if you want to bag the club, I reckon you are saying, in part, that you know the answers to the above more than people whose livelihood depends on winning games of football. It’s entirely possible, but in my view – as Roly would say – less likely than more likely.
