The AFL is preparing to introduce a major change to Brownlow Medal voting, with football boss Greg Swann revealing umpires are likely to be given access to player statistics from next season.
The move comes after renewed controversy over voting, particularly surrounding St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera missing out on maximum votes in a match-winning display against Melbourne.
Currently, umpires cast their votes without consulting any numbers, relying solely on their observations. Swann said that may change as early as 2026.
“I don’t think there’s any issue around that. So we might look to do that next year – we (can) get a mechanism where that can happen,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
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Field umpire Simon Meredith, who will take charge of his 10th grand final this weekend, admitted access to data would be useful. “If you get stats, I’m sure that would add something that we could look at, to help us,” Meredith said. “Even if we had stats, there’s going to be a raging opinion about who gets what.”
AFL chief Andrew Dillon added that the league had previously canvassed umpires about using statistics when voting, but until now they had declined.
“We talk to the umpires each year about access to stats and we’ve put that to them in the last three or four years and they haven’t wanted that,” Dillon told The Agenda Setters. “But we’ll have the conversation with them.”
The AFL Commission will also consider a raft of other potential rule changes at its October meeting, but for now, reforming the Brownlow process looms as one of the most immediate shifts.