SWFL: Umpires Association president Braden Surrall admits ‘numbers are down’ ahead of 2025 season

The president of the South West Football League Umpires Association has admitted the numbers of officials in the competition “are down on what we’d like” ahead of the 2025 season.

SWFLUA president Braden Surrall said the league had sufficient numbers to administer the league, women’s, reserves and colts competitions — which start next weekend — but the overall trend in umpire numbers had been on a downwards spiral.

Problems with attracting umpires were not unique to the competition — the AFL has been leading a push to attract more people into umpiring since 2022, when the governing body admitted the sport had a deficit of 6000 umpires at the community level.

Surrall said a “range of different factors” were impacting umpiring numbers.

“Ultimately, numbers are down on what we’d like to be able to run games week in, week out,” he said.

“We’ve had some umpires move away due to study, some have moved on to higher competitions.

“Ex-players, they see what an umpire cops, so they’re like ‘do I want to put myself in it?’

“Hopefully, the pathways we’re trying to set up in 2025 will promote umpires to come on board. Just like being a player, we’ve got somewhere to start, we’ve got somewhere to aim and ultimately end up in the WAFL, AFL or AFLW.

Having a shortage of umpires increases the burden on those already in place, which Surrall said was a major concern.

“We don’t ask players to run as many games as we’d ask an umpire to do, so there’s got to be some sort of limit on how much we’re asking our umpires to do,” he said.

“Obviously it’s very physical, very mentally demanding as well, so ultimately we’ve got to look after what we’ve got or we’re going to end up in a worse situation.”

One area of umpiring where the association is seeing strong growth was in the junior ranks, where aspiring umpires start their journey running the boundary.

Surrall said seeing an uptick in the number of youngsters taking up umpiring had been pleasing and important, but the association was making a concerted effort to target a more senior demographic.

“Even if they don’t have experience, we need them to jump in and find senior footy, it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be,” he said.

“Ex-players would be the perfect target for us, someone who’s been around the traps a little bit.”

Surrall said the benefits of umpiring far outweighed the downsides and anyone interested in becoming an umpire would be welcomed into a supportive community.

“As a field umpire, you’ve got the best view of the game, you’re right in the thick of it,” he said.

“You’re earning pretty decent cash running around, you can keep fit as well as having a good time with other people. If you’re keen, come down.”

In August last season, 701-game goal umpire Katrina Edwards retired citing a lack of support from both inside and outside the umpiring fraternity as one of her reasons for hanging up the flags.

Katrina Edwards called time on her officiating stint, receiving a guard of honour from both teams as she left the field, and stressed she was not leaving the game on bad terms and her time had been largely positive, but hoped her experience could inspire change.

“I’ve decided for the sake of my mental health to walk away, rather than continue to put myself through what I’ve been receiving,” she said.

“Too many people are walking away from umpiring and retiring for all sorts of reasons, but when it really comes down to it, I know we’ve lost at least half a dozen umpires last year because they’re not happy with the way things are going.”

SWFL umpires train at Hands Oval from 5pm on Wednesdays.