‘Bumbling of the highest order’: AFL savaged for ump blame game after Schultz concussion

The AFL has been savaged for its bungled handling of the fallout from Lachie Schultz’s concussion last Thursday night and the ensuing saga that saw the umpires receive undue blame.

On Tuesday, Seven aired footage of the collision between Schultz and Fremantle’s Jordan Clark including the umpire audio, in which an umpire could be heard saying: “(We’ve) got an injured player in the middle. I’m watching. We are OK. We are OK.”

An umpire is also heard telling a player: “We can only stop the play if the ball is coming near or if they instruct us to.”

On Wednesday, the AFL released its third statement in the space of six days, walking back a previous communication that effectively asserted the umpires didn’t tell the truth about the handling of Schultz’s concussion.

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The league’s executive general manager Laura Kane on Wednesday said: “Our process in determining what happened Thursday night failed, and for that we take full responsibility.

“Today we have determined there was a miscommunication from members of the umpiring department, not the field umpires, which formed the basis of our initial public statement on Friday.

“Those team members have been counselled and reminded of the importance of ensuring our process is fully followed regarding these types of incidents and in this instance it was not.

“I have asked GM Football Performance Josh Mahoney to review these processes to ensure the right information is communicated and to ensure this does not happen again.

“Everyone, including our umpires are aligned in ensuring the health and safety of players continues to be the upmost priority and the AFL has been in regular contact with the AFLUA today.”

The AFL initially stated last Friday that the umpires were unaware of Schultz’s injury.

On Fox Footy’s AFL 360, hosts Gerard Whateley and Garry Lyon criticised the league’s handling of the entire situation.

“It is the sort of story that erodes public faith in an administration, and it has warts all over it,” Whateley said on Wednesday night.

“If I was going to take a stab at it, I would lay it out like this: I reckon an AFL staffer rang the umpires’ coach in the post-game, there were crossed wires, which meant that the subsequent clarification that was issued was wrong, the AFL never checks its vision or audio, Channel 7 does, the AFL says the umpires misled them (but) the umpires had never been asked.

“The umpires are labelled liars on TV, and there’s a university lecture in how it all gets resolved from here.”

After reading out Kane’s statement to the audience, he added: “This is bumbling of the highest order, and it is chastening for the administration of the biggest sport in the land.”

Former Demons great Lyon said the umpires were the ones “wronged most grievously” throughout the course of this saga.

“They’re the ones that have got the biggest issue,” he said. “They’ve been labelled liars; they’ve been set up for a four-game suspension when in fact what they were accused of doing didn’t happen.

“There are other components that we can get into about whether or not the game should’ve been stopped, but right now, that’s the biggest issue, and the chain of communication and how it works at AFL level is in disarray.”

Whateley and Lyon then dismayed over the fact that Simon Meredith — the senior-most of the four umpires last Thursday — wasn’t even consulted in the aftermath.

“It takes your breath away, really … there are four umpires involved — Simon Meredith is the most decorated of them — and I can only imagine at how he has felt across the period of these six days. (He was) never asked,” Whateley said.

Lyon, who also called the umpires’ relationship with the AFL “strained”, added: “He (Meredith) was never asked in this whole process; the man who’s umpired 500 games of football was never asked.

“I think that’s enough right there, it tells you how badly this has been handled.”

Whateley also lamented the fact the league didn’t do its due diligence in reviewing their own footage.

“And the second part is the AFL never checked its own vision or audio, which is … they didn’t do their work last week (with the Willie Rioli situation), they didn’t do their work this week,” he said.

It comes as Collingwood reinforced its stance on the incident involving Schultz, again declaring the game needed to be stopped.

Play continued around Schultz after he was knocked out in the dying minutes of the Magpies’ win over Fremantle at Perth Stadium.

Collingwood executive general manager of football Charlie Gardiner admitted the fallout between the umpires and the AFL was a surprise, before solidifying the club’s view.

“I have been a little bit surprised with some of the internal communications but from our perspective it doesn’t change our position on the night that play should’ve been stopped,” he said.

“I think everyone is in agreement with that.”

— with NCA NewsWire