By Luke D'Anello
If you're an umpire with aspirations to climb the ranks, join the Southern Football Netball League.
That's the message from the competition's umpiring director Glenn Emery as local football leagues celebrate the Community Umpiring Week.
Emery, who is in his third year in the role, said the Southern league had a 341 field, boundary and goal umpires on its books in 2025 - a number that compares favourably with most rival competitions.
"The numbers are great. If not leading in Victoria, they're very close to it," Emery said.
"We've had two consecutive years of 340-plus registrations and you'd have to go back over 10 years to get to those sorts of numbers.
"There's 27 regions in Victoria, and of those 27 regions, the elite umpires are selected to go onto the VFL development list. That's the first major stepping point I suppose ultimately to the AFL.
"We've had 12 field umpires who have gone up to the VFL in the last three years alone. That's a full division one list of my best umpires gone. We represent almost a third of the total VFL list - from one region.
"With 27 regions, you'd expect to be putting up 4 per cent of the total. We're putting up around 30 per cent."
Community Umpiring Week runs from April 28 to May 4 and provides a chance for the men and women in white to have their turn in the spotlight.
The week aims to highlight the integral role umpires play at all levels of the game, encourages people to consider getting into umpiring and promotes the importance of respect for umpires.
"I think there's a recognition out there that you haven't got a game without umpires," Emery said.
"Slowly, the overall environment and experience is getting better over time.
"I'm still very wary when I'm appointing younger umpires to certain teams and certain games, I'm not gonna lie.
"But I think overall, like anything in life, 95 per cent of all clubs are fantastic, and there's only that little minority that don't come along for the ride."
Emery said during Community Umpiring Week the Southern league's team would have the opportunity to train with umpires who had graduated to VFL level and above.
"We've had a lot of umpires go from our group up to the next level, so it's a great chance for them to come back," he said.
"If a young umpire can see that they're in an environment and a group where there's clearly superior numbers going up the VFL, well they want to be part of it if they've got aspirations."
