A serious question

[Adelaide Hawk]

This may seem like a dig at umpires, but it's somethng I would really like to know.

Do AFL umpires have to submit to mandatory eyesight tests? If so, how often is it carried out, and what are the standards that must be met?

If not .... why not?

 

[Strawbs]

Don't think they are eye tested and as far as I can tell they may not have to pass a literacy test either. Well, most of them don't seem to have read the rules.

 

[TimmehJC"]

The idea with the umpires is they are marked on their decision making ability. Now sight issues would decrease their chance of making the correct call and would assumably be picked up in the reviews of their matches, causing them to eventually be dropped on form. If this part of the system is working properly (which by the fact Ray is umpiring finals again, it isn't) then you probably don't need the mandatory sight tests.

 

[telsor]

If they need glasses, I'm sure they'd wear them. Indeed, I would expect some of them wear contacts every week.

If any of them had problems severe enough that contacts couldn't correct, I suspect they would quickly be out of the job.

 

[grimface_87]

They are sponsored by OPSM for a reason

 

[Ice-Wolf]

They are sponsored by OPSM for a reason

Yes, to ruin the OPSM corporate image.

 

[Essendonia]

They should wear a 'force training' visor, just like Luke Skywalker, and "feel" the decision flowing through them.

Damned umpires.

Seriously, you would expect that sight tests would be at least an annual fixture of job performance assessment - or assessment of capacity to perform. Sometimes you get the far umpire overruling the near umpire, so you would expect some 20/20 vision!

 

[savagelunchbox]

This is a dead-set true fact: The umpires aren't given games according to their decision making abilities; they're given games according to if they're up to fitness standards.

I guarantee this is correct. Think about it, why are umpires who continually make bad calls at bad times that directly effect the result of the game given a game next week where they perform poorly again?

Also, Goldspink finally got dropped after inexcess of half a decade of poor umpiring. Why? Coz he wasn't up to an acceptable fitness level.