Sports psychologist says AFL is asking the IMPOSSIBLE with ‘ignorant’ arms out umpire dissent rule

The AFL‘s arms out umpire dissent rule is ‘ignorant’ and it is asking the impossible of players, according to a leading sports psychologist.

The AFL has cracked down on dissent this season, clamping down on players who appear to remonstrate following a decisions. 

Umpires have been instructed to treat players stretching their arms or shaking their heads after a free-kick has been awarded as dissent, which has resulted in a cascade of 50-metre penalties being handed out in the first six rounds of the season.

A leading sports psychologist claims the AFL is asking the impossible of players with its crackdown on umpire dissent this season 

But Jacqui Louder, a sports psychologist who works with Collingwood and the Melbourne Storm, insisted it was completely natural for players to react to the whistle as they do.

Expecting players to control unconscious reactions was impossible and cracking down on dissent without the support of science was ‘ignorant’, she added. 

‘Because the AFL is not in this area and they don’t understand how emotions actually work, they’ve made a decision without an educated understanding,’ Louder, who previously worked with North Melbourne, Tennis Australia and Swimming Australia, told the Herald Sun. 

‘I don’t think there’s any malice in it, but I don’t think they understand the complexities of how the brain works under stress conditions and how quickly things happen and what is an unconscious reaction.

The number of 50-metres penalty has skyrocketed this season as the AFL has told umpires to clamp down on players’ dissent 

‘A lot of times when the player is throwing his arms up or shaking their heads, it’s actually at themselves, it’s not actually at an umpire, so you just can’t look at a behaviour and automatically say that’s dissent.

Two parts of the brain are involved when it comes to emotional reactions, the amygdala – which is the source of stress – and the frontal lobe – which is responsible for a person’s thinking. 

However, because the latter does not fully develop until the age of 25, asking younger players to manage their stress levels in high-pressure situations is unfeasible. 

Hawthorn were penalised with a dubious 50-metre penalty in win against Geelong in Round 5

Conversely, older players were less likely to be penalised as they ‘better understood their emotions’, Louder added.  

‘If you are a young person or a person who already has an anxious personality you’re the exact player who may find this very, very difficult and impossible,’ she said.

‘So, AFL, don’t make decisions in an area you don’t understand, get your info first.

‘I understand what they are trying to do but don’t make my job that impossible.’

Louder compared the feeling of hearing the umpire’s whistle as ’emotional hijacking’, which lasts for about six seconds and prevents players from thinking clearly.

Louder said players’ reaction towards the umpires couldn’t be helped, particularly if the players were younger than 25

‘Where instead of your brain operating immediately out of your frontal lobe, it actually goes through your amygdala which is where your stress hormones come from, and that’s the protective zone which is what causes your initial reaction to things,’ she explained.

‘So, when your brain gets hijacked by that amygdala to protect you and goes into that initial, emotional reaction, the re-routing of that around your amygdala and before you get to the thinking part of your brain, takes six seconds.

‘And in that six seconds is when you will see an emotional, unconscious reaction. So, when you see them throw their hands up or shake their head, that is an unconscious reaction when it happens immediately.’