Club Respect

Smart Plays is Club Respect’s podcast that shines a light on uncomfortable topics in Australian sport and aims to rebuild respect as the base platform for interaction between fans, parents, coaches, players and officials.

Overview:

• Community Officiating Essential Skills Course
• A line in the sand for match officials: Q&A with Cameron Tradell – Part 1 | Part 2
• PlayWell strategy
• Australian Sports Commission’s podcast
• Powerful video: Officially Human
• Match official journal series by Patrick Skene: Sport at the crossroads
• Brooke Kneebush’s LinkedIn

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All episodes:

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Transcript:

Contents

1. Introduction [00:27]
2. The Importance of Officiating [02:14]
3. Australian Sports Commission’s Role [3:36]
4. Community Officiating Essential Skills Course [8:14]
5. Are officiating standards dropping? [12:27]
6. Reframing the role of Match Officials [16:06]
7. What does change look like? [18:21]
8. Bigger picture and resourcing [21:44]
9. Final thoughts – benefits of Officiating [24:19]

 

1. Introduction [00:27]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Keeping fit while earning some cash and being a part of the sport you love. Sounds like a pretty good deal! Picking up some useful life skills like learning to negotiate with people and staying calm under pressure. You’re on a winner!

People love becoming refs, umpires, officials. Some make it their life’s work officiating at the big leagues or in community comps. They don’t just do it, they actually love it and despite facing challenges at times, they keep coming back week after week to ensure competitions can go ahead.

The position of authority, the ultimate decision-maker of every decision in the game, attracts a variety of responses from players, coaches and fans. These range from respecting the complexity of the role to outright abuse and sometimes even violent contempt.

It’s not true to say match officials are always subjected to violence and it’s not telling the whole story to suggest every decision is respected.

National and state sporting bodies and Leagues might increase recruitment of new officials with feel-good stories, but they’ll suffer the consequence of poor retention as officials leave their roles when their expectations don’t match reality.

Painting the whole picture for officials is as important as ever and goes hand-in-hand with supporting clubs to respect and honour their role as community leaders.

Here to chat with us about the whole picture is Brooke Kneebush, a former leader and executive in Gymnastics for over 20 years and now with the Australian Sports Commission advising on all things Officiating.

Brooke, thanks for joining us on Smart Plays!

Brooke Kneebush: 

Thanks very much, Tarik. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited about the conversation.

 

2. The Importance of Officiating [02:14]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Awesome. Me too. Brooke, what is it about this topic that makes you believe it’s so important?

Brooke Kneebush: 

My involvement in sport since being a young child has always been as an all rounder. I was a passionate gymnast, never highly skilled, but the best recreational gymnast I could be. And I think that that’s what it is about officiating and the importance of ensuring that officials are treated respectfully and have the opportunity to enjoy their experience as officials just as much as it should be an opportunity for participants to enjoy their experience. That is really important.

I have always been really passionate about people having opportunities to get involved in sport and enjoy what I enjoy about sport, which is being social, being with friends, getting out there and moving and enjoying the benefits of physical activity.

And when I think that sometimes, as you mentioned, you know, sometimes the experience for officials isn’t great, sometimes they’re not treated respectfully, they’re not treated recognised and even rewarded as they should be for the contribution that they make to sport, that makes me really sad and I really want to be a part of changing that, changing the culture in sport in Australia so that everyone has that opportunity to participate in a safe, inclusive environment.

 

3. Australian Sports Commission’s Role [3:36]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

National Sporting Organisations, State Sporting Associations, sport leagues, local governments, they’ve all got a part to play in the Match Official journey. How is the Australian Sports Commission positioned in relation to these other significant stakeholders?

Brooke Kneebush: 

You’re absolutely right. The approach to supporting officials needs to be multifaceted. We can’t just sit back and provide resources to NSOs or resources to officials and hope that the message filters down and gets out there.

The Australian Sports Commission is prioritising officiating and recognises that coaches and officials are two sides of the one coin. We have in the past provided a lot of resources around coaching and now we’re really ramping up the resources that we’re putting around officiating.

The roles of coaches and officials are really supportive, or reliant and supportive of each other. They both need to work together hand in hand to take a modern approach to sport and that is to create environments where individuals are able to participate and according to their own motivations and needs and that they can participate in safe, inclusive, enjoyable environments for everybody.

So the Australian Sports Commission has worked with NSOs, so National Sporting organisations, National Sporting Organisations for People with Disabilities, State Sporting Associations, to develop the modern approach. The modern approach is all about understanding that individuals have different motivations and that coaches, officials, everybody has a part to play in creating safe, inclusive environments and people can achieve their own versions of success. From an officiating point of view, recognising that not everyone gets to win, but it can still be a positive experience even if you weren’t the winner on the day.

So recently the Sports Commission released the Community Officiating Essential Skills Course and take up of the course has been really significant. It’s not just a course for beginner officials, it’s actually really beneficial and valuable to all officials and coaches as well. It’s great to see experienced officials taking up the course. Coaches are seeing benefit as well and that’s really great news because they’re the ones that are going to be mentoring the younger generation and they’re the ones that are officiating and coaching people who are participants in sport now and might go on to become coaches and officials down the track.

We need everyone to be on the same page. So to date, with the Essential Skills Course we’ve had nearly 25,000 module completions which is really great news. So we’ve got plenty of people who are now, we know, aware of and hopefully out there practising the modern approach.

Other examples of work that the Australian Sports Commission is doing include recently there was the Officials campaign on social media, you might have seen come across your social media feeds and this one in the first week alone the video was viewed 2,500 times. The campaign raises awareness of officiating as a vocation, the contribution that officials make to sport and the benefits that can be derived from being an official.

The Sports Commission, our Community Coaching and Officiating team is also producing supporting other animation resources. There’s the coaching essential skills masterclass and micro learning resources and coaching and officiating Women & Girls resources as well. There’s women’s mentor pilot project and more officiating resources coming soon which will be masterclasses and micro learning bite sized pieces of education.

So getting back to your question of connecting with other stakeholders, Playwell Australia’s sport participation strategy, provides us with the ideal opportunity to do this. Playwell has been co-designed with the sector and promises to change the way we experience, deliver and lead the sector to ensure that everyone has a place in sport. The mission is to create safe, welcoming, inclusive and fun sporting experiences achieved through six priority areas. And amongst those priority areas is one around transforming culture which is really important. Also around empowering people and organisations and driving lifelong involvement. Because participation doesn’t have to just be as a player or an athlete but participation is also officiating and coaching.

 

4. Community Officiating Essential Skills Course [8:14]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

A recent article for Club Respect had Patrick Skene and Cameron Tradell in discussion. Cameron likened the recent efforts of the Australian Sports Commission, which includes the launch of the Community Officiating Essential Skills Course, as a ‘line in the sand’ moment. How can upskilling officials help to reduce the culture of disrespect often experienced by officials?

Brooke Kneebush: 

Yeah sure. So it isn’t just about upskilling officials because it’s not about making officials more resilient and them having to bear the burden of disrespectful treatment. But you’re absolutely right, this is a line in the sand moment. It is time to stop and say ‘enough is enough – No, we will not put up with disrespectful behaviour towards officials’. And we just can’t sit around and perpetuate this antiquated attitude of, you know, criticising officials is just what we do, or they need to get tougher and put up with it, that it’s just not acceptable any longer.

We certainly can upskill officials and we can help them to learn how to be the best officials that they can be. But it is about everyone playing their role in creating respectful environments.

Although officials do unfortunately sometimes experience disrespectful treatment, sadly, poor behaviour is not just limited to being towards officials. Other people in sport, sadly, do experience disrespectful behaviours as well.

So while the Australian Sports Commission’s officiating resources, including the Essential Skills Course, lay a foundation of a modern approach to officiating, and this is complemented by Coaching resources with a modern approach, also, the Australian Sports Commission is doing a lot more than that. And this is across the whole organisation and it’s about everyone doing their bit to create positive sporting environments for everyone to participate in sports safely, inclusively and on their terms.

And, you know, positive environments really require a multifaceted approach. Essential skills of officiating is the beginning of the resources for officials. It lays a foundation of that modern approach and as I mentioned, you know, it is supported and goes hand in hand with those coaching essential skills. It sets the standard for what is expected of officials and what officials should expect and accept in the environment that they work in.

We can’t just train officials to officiate with a modern approach, though, and then send them out into environments that are not modern and are not safe and inclusive. We really need to ensure that we support them and the environments that they’re officiating in are. Everyone is on the same page and understands that modern approach.

So that’s why the resources of the Community Coaching and Officiating team at the Australian Sports Commission and other resources of the Sports Commission all support and build on each other. Education and awareness is for everyone involved in sport officials, coaches, clubs and there’s Game Plan for clubs and those in governance roles, etc.

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Here’s some live feedback for you on the course. I’m not an active official at the moment, but I did do the course in preparation for this conversation and I think that it took me just under three hours. My short take on it was that it was easy, comprehensive, engaging. I felt that it was a really important foundation for officials to be aware of. There were heaps of things I already knew, but it was valuable to have it reframed in a way that’s part of a bigger picture. I really liked how that was set up.

Brooke Kneebush: 

Oh that’s fantastic to hear. And the great thing about the course also is that it’s really consumable in that it’s in separate modules. And so that it might be officials or coaches or even participants or athletes could find a module that might resonate with them or they might see a gap or they might want to learn more about and complete that in 20 or 30 minutes and then go away and perhaps come back at another time.

 

5. Are officiating standards dropping? [12:27]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

I’ll put the links to the article and the course in the show notes of course. We’ve recently seen some high profile cases where the standard of officiating at professional leagues have been questioned. Is this a logical outcome of years of poor retention with depleted talent pools or just another form of abuse that aims to degrade officials?

Brooke Kneebush: 

Yeah, look, it is true sometimes officials do make mistakes, just like athletes and sometimes coaches and other people make mistakes. And really the whole reason that we have officials is because participants or players make mistakes. Officials need to make decisions and apply rules based on what the athletes do.

But in a lot of sports, officials are actually elite athletes too. They train just as hard as players do to ensure that they know the rules and that they have the fitness to be in the right position at the right time to have the best opportunity to observe the athletes.

Officials make thousands of decisions in every competition and as spectators, we only see and hear a small percentage of those decisions. Because often the decision is not to do anything, not to make a call, just to let play continue. But no matter how fit an official is and how well they know the rules, they can only be positioned in one place at one time. And they will see a situation from that perspective. A decision that they make from that perspective, it might be the right decision, but it might look different from another perspective. For example, a spectator in the audience 100 metres away or a slow motion video zoomed in after the fact might look slightly different.

So look, you know, often it’s a case of understanding or interpretation of the rules. In sports like AFL, for example, rules are amended from year to year and you know, that’s often for the safety of the players or it might be to create better flow in the game or whatever the reason.

But officials will at times take a firmer approach to certain rules when they see that safety might be at risk or they can see escalation of certain behaviour putting participants at risk. And when that’s the case, it is really helpful to ensure that everyone’s aware that they are going to be firmer in those situations. It is confusing if from week to week it appears that the emphasis on certain rules differs.

So, you know, informing players by saying, look, if you do this then you’re going to be penalised. Instead you should be doing this. But I don’t believe that the standard of officiating in professional leagues has dropped at all. In fact, officials are becoming more and more highly educated and skilled than ever before, really. Perhaps those that criticise should take a step back and consider whether their views are really objective or whether they are just looking for somebody to blame when things don’t go their way.

You know, there was an appalling example, sadly, where the offender took out their frustration that the results weren’t really going in their favour of their team, results weren’t really going in their favour, threw a bottle at a goal umpire who had absolutely no influence over any cause of those results.

So, you know, in answer to your question, I don’t think that the standard is deteriorating in any way and I don’t think that poor retention or depleted talent pools has an impact on the performance of officials. I think that abuse is not acceptable in any form and I think that sometimes people are a little bit one-eyed or one-sided when they consider the performance of officials.

 

6. Reframing the role of Match Officials [16:06]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

You’ve spoken about how the narrative of officials “needing to be resilient” needs to be flipped and that we need to be promoting the message that everybody contributes to and has a responsibility to make sport safe, inclusive and enjoyable.

Sports that hire match officials need to project a positive image of officiating for recruitment while also responsible for acknowledging the potential risks associated with officiating.

Is there an alternative way to tackle this? Does it need to be reframed?

Brooke Kneebush: 

Yeah, it does, it does. You know, we can’t just project a positive image if it doesn’t actually exist in reality. We all need to be responsible for creating environments where officials feel and are safe, valued, supported.

Sports can do this and demonstrate this by providing support, for example, for young officials, there should certainly be adult support readily visible and available. And those adults, they don’t always have to be trained, experienced officials. They can be volunteers, upskilled and prepared to provide support should the officials need it or should an issue arise.

And actually, if those volunteers were parents or club members, wouldn’t that be great? They could see firsthand the type of support officials need, the type of behaviour that they sometimes come up against. And they can then influence their child, other parents in the club, to ensure that they’re not part of the problem, but rather create a positive team and club culture.

You know, that support doesn’t have to be limited to just young officials. All officials need to be supported and really celebrated. And actually there are some really great little videos on YouTube about the umpire cheer squad. I urge you to look them up. You’ve probably seen them, Tarik, and one of the quotes was, they don’t come into your workplace and boo you! So why would you do that to them out here in their workplace?

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Yeah, I’ve seen the one created by a group called Officially Human, where the setting is a kid’s orchestra. Parents stand up angrily in the crowd screaming at the conductor about why their kid isn’t playing the solo.

Brooke Kneebush:

Very clever.

Tarik Bayrakli: 

It’s just the same as parents yelling from the sidelines during community league sports match, but in a different context.

Brooke Kneebush: 

Yeah.

 

7. What does change look like? [18:21]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Culture of disrespect towards umpires and refs seems to be ingrained in some sporting cultures. What do sport lovers need to see or feel before change happens?

Brooke Kneebush: 

Yeah, I’ve got a few ideas to consider here. So at the professional level, clubs, players and coaches need to be role models. Influencers come out and say disrespect towards officials is not okay. So if spectators or fans are seeing their idols actually stepping up and being those role models and saying that it’s not okay, then perhaps they might take some of that on board.

Certainly tools for clubs and members to handle disrespectful treatment when it does occur are needed to shut this behaviour down. There are lots of ways that bystanders can manage a situation if they do see disrespectful treatment. But not everyone feels comfortable or safe to speak up at the time. And there should be others at the club that they can go to for support.

So, you know, it’s not enough for clubs just to have a code of conduct sitting in a folder on a shelf or even on a poster on a wall. But clubs really need to create an awareness and educate their members and let them know that this is the way we do things around here. This is our culture of our club. In our club, we treat everyone with respect and you know, we can support clubs to create that education and awareness.

But prevention is absolutely better than cure. Creating club cultures where officials are part of the club, valued, respected, welcomed and included within the club will really go a long way to ensuring that everyone’s treated as humans. People treat others the way that they want to be treated.

And I’ve actually heard stories of in AFL, for example, in country leagues where I remember one coach was saying, we don’t really seem to have an issue with disrespectful treatment towards officials because it’s probably someone’s uncle or sister or brother. You know, they’re part of the family, they’re part of the community. Whereas sometimes in bigger sports and in bigger cities, for example, the officials are that much more removed from the club and cultural environment. And if we could open our arms and bring them in, I think that that would go a long way.

And the media needs to stop perpetuating this disrespect by criticising every decision. You know, an officiating advisor on media panels to explain rules and decisions and how a certain situation might have come about would be really helpful. And I think it actually really adds interest and value to commentary.

You know, I’m from a gymnastics background and often gymnastics judges are coaches as well and vice versa. And I think that that also helps in creating that more respect, mutually respectful relationship because we understand each other’s perspectives better. I think also judges are associated with clubs, that’s how they are nominated for competitions, for example. So again they’re part of the club, family or community. So I think that that certainly does help to create those more respectful relationships.

 

8. Bigger picture and resourcing [21:44]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

So one last big question. How would you tackle the need to support match officials in the Australian sports ecosystem if you had considerably more resources? Say 500 million.

Brooke Kneebush: 

500 million, right. Okay, I’m looking forward to spending it. First of all, Respectful Behaviours Officers in every sporting club in Australia, to educate and create awareness of the importance of everybody taking responsibility for treating everybody with respect.

More recognition and reward for the work that officials do, the value that they contribute to the sporting experiences of participants.

Opportunities for more Officials, Officials Coaches and Mentors to be paid and have full time paid opportunities could help in some instances. Because it is true when people volunteer their time to take on officiating responsibilities, they might have less time to train, be educated, upskill. And there might therefore be an opportunity for them to make more mistakes if they don’t have as much training as they possibly could.

We could spend some of that money to infiltrate and influence the mainstream media to educate them on the implications of perpetuating this criticism of officials.

But actually all of those things we could do without a bottomless pit of money. It just takes time and effort. And I’m up for the challenge, Tarik, are you!?

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Yep. Absolutely. I mean, let’s do it. I mean, we’re at the pointy end of all of this and I think bringing people along and letting them reconsider their own feelings and beliefs of match officials might be a good start. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to call match officials what they are as community heroes. They’re the people who are there for us, making sport chug along, making community sport happen.

Brooke Kneebush:

Yep and they really do deserve much more recognition than they get. I am really pleased to say, though, that they are starting to get more recognition. So this time around with the Olympics, far more sports were NSOs and SSOs were promoting on social media the selection of their officials. Whereas in the past, you wouldn’t have had a clue that these people had trained for all those years, gone through all those selections and nominations and everything you have to go through to get there. No one would have known about that. And you are starting to see more of that. Yeah.

Which is really great. I mean, we can continue to do more and we can continue to respect and appreciate them on the day at competitions and right down at grassroots level. I think we’re heading in the right direction.

 

9. Final thoughts – benefits of Officiating [24:19]

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Brooke, it’s been great chatting with you. Were there any last thoughts that you wanted to add?

Brooke Kneebush: 

Well, I wanted to really finish off on a positive note and talk about all the benefits and the value and the actual enjoyment that people can get out of officiating. And I wanted to quote Claire Polosak. So Claire, if you are not aware, is an international cricket umpire, trailblazer and role model. And she said “it’s a rewarding and challenging job that sets you up with transferable skills for the future. Every day is different. As an official, you’re always learning and get to meet a range of different people”. And I think that really does sum up a lot of the benefits that I’ve seen through officiating and I’ve spoken to other officials as well.

And Claire mentioned the transferable skills. If you google World Economic Forum with the top 10 skills of 2025, so these are skills for the workforce in 2025, almost every single skill on that list can be developed through officiating. So analytical thinking and innovation, active learning, learning strategies, complex problem solving, critical thinking, leadership, resilience, and as I said, problem solving. So, you know, there Absolutely are transferable skills.

Just as training as an athlete provides potential opportunities to represent Australia on the international stage, so too does officiating. There’s a legitimate pathway to international representation, including the Olympics. And we featured in Australian Sports Commission social media several of the officials who were selected to represent Australia as officials at the Olympics. And we’ll be doing the same for the Paralympics.

As an official, you certainly get the best seat in the house. And I know some of the video footage in the essential skills course, the water is actually splashing the feet of the official that we’re featuring there. That’s how close to the action you can get.

And from my own experience and also the experiences that I hear about from lots of other officials, it’s the friendships, the social interactions that are one of the best things about being an official. People often talk about their officiating family and the lifelong friendships that they’ve formed. So, yes, there can be challenges, but there are so many rewards and believe me, it’s well worth it.

Tarik Bayrakli: 

Awesome. Brooke, it was lovely chatting with you. It’s been really good to know what the Australian Sports Commission’s been up to and the support they’re providing to match officials. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today and I really appreciate you coming on to Smart Plays.

Brooke Kneebush:

Thanks again.