A pioneer footy umpire is taking the AFL to the Fair Work commission, claiming she was sacked five weeks into an AFL job because she uncovered systemic abuse of female umpires.
The AFL, however, says she was let go because she had “misrepresented her role, her responsibilities and her authority” during her short time at the league.
Libby Toovey umpired in the first year of AFLW, later ran a female umpires mentorship program with AFL umpire Eleni Glouftsis and still plays for amateur club Old Caulfield Grammarians.
Former umpire Libby Toovey.Credit: Darrian Traynor
Earlier this year, taking a break from her job as a high school teacher, Toovey began a job as an AFL female umpire talent scout. One night at an information session for 17 budding field, goal and boundary umpires at AFL House, Toovey says one woman had a panic attack as she listened to some of the early hurdles faced by groundbreaking goal umpire Chelsea Roffey and remembered her own unhappy experiences in Melbourne’s west.
Libby Toovey in her umpiring days.
She says others came forward. “One from the VAFA [amateurs] said she had been told she was too fat, too old, and would never make it,” Toovey said. “One said, ‘There’s a man at my club who is known to have abused his wife and is really inappropriate with young women’.”
Toovey said this tallied with other stories she had heard when umpiring. The next day, she told a manager, who she said told her: “Your job here is done. Can you focus on your work in SA and WA?” She replied: “I feel like I’m being silenced here.”
Next, Toovey called another manager but says she was brushed off. Subsequently, Toovey was called to a meeting with the second manager and, to her surprise, an HR representative. “In that meeting, [the second manager] said, ‘I’ve checked with the girls. They said they’re fine, nothing more needs to be done. We’re here to talk about your behaviour’.
“They said, ‘You’ve gone beyond the authority of your role to tell us this. You’ve breached the confidentiality of the girls who told you this’.” Toovey said she had their consent.
Toovey said she enlisted former 10-year VFL/AFL umpire Neville Nash as her support person for a second meeting, but a week later she was gone. She had worked at the AFL just more than a month.
An AFL spokesman said Toovey was a junior staffer who had frequently “misrepresented her role, her responsibilities and her authority to both internal and external stakeholders”.
“While the employee had only been with the AFL for a number of weeks, the seriousness of the breaches were of a nature that it was not possible for the employee to continue to work within the organisation,” the spokesman said.
AFL female umpire pioneer Eleni Glouftsis.Credit: Getty Images
“The AFL takes very seriously its responsibility to provide a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment for all staff members, but it also takes seriously each employee’s right to privacy and right to their personal information not being shared without their permission.”
Goal umpire Chelsea Roffey in 2012.Credit: Wayne Taylor
On Wednesday, Toovey and the AFL will meet by phone for mediation under the auspices of the Fair Work commission. “I’m going in there to say I was fired for being a whistleblower,” she said.
She said she did not want her job back, nor did she want money. “I honestly just want the AFL to admit that they are causing a lot of hurt and trauma to female umpires,” she said. “My moral obligation to look after female umpires usurps the brand of the AFL. I’ve told them I can’t work for an organisation that puts profit above people.”
The AFL spokesman said the league “takes very seriously any information of harassment, inappropriate behaviour or concerns about the safety of women and girls in football and has invested considerable resource and investment in responding to issues raised in the Women and Girls in Umpiring Report that was commissioned by the AFL in 2020”.
That study, conducted by Sydney University, detailing widespread abuse, was leaked last year.
Toovey has returned to teaching in a relief role and hopes one day to start a business as an education and inclusion consultant. “The AFL will continue to offer support services to the former junior staffer,” the AFL spokesman said.
Full AFL statement
The AFL confirms that it ended the employment of a junior staffer who started with the organisation after a month due to serious concerns regarding her conduct.
The AFL found that the employee had engaged in conduct that constituted multiple breaches of AFL policy and during her short period of time with the organisation, had on numerous occasions, misrepresented her role, her responsibilities and her authority to both internal and external stakeholders.
While the employee had only been with the AFL for a number of weeks, the seriousness of the breaches were of a nature that it was not possible for the employee to continue to work within the organisation.
The AFL takes very seriously its responsibility to provide a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment for all staff members, but it also takes seriously each employee’s right to privacy and right to their personal information not being shared without their permission.
The AFL also takes very seriously any information of harassment, inappropriate behaviour or concerns about the safety of women and girls in football and has invested considerable resource and investment in responding to issues raised in the Women and Girls in Umpiring Report that was commissioned by the AFL in 2020.
The AFL also reiterates that it strongly and actively encourages an open and transparent culture of raising concerns and team members can raise concerns internally or via our portal. To assert this staff member was terminated for raising concerns is absolutely incorrect.
The AFL will continue to offer support services to the former junior staffer.
The AFL also wrote to community umpires before the start of the season advising of the process for reporting any issues at any level of the game as well as providing an update on the actions taken at both the elite and community level since the completion of the Women and Girls in Umpiring Report.
The AFL also appointed a Leadership Advisory Group to provide guidance and assist the AFL to deliver on the outcomes set in the Women and Girls Game Development Action Plan, to create equal opportunities for women to play, coach, umpire, officiate, administer, and govern the game.
The group is focusing on the actions as they relate to leadership roles for women in Community Football, a key area of the Women and Girls Action plan, and will help to deliver the AFL Women’s Football Vision to strive for equal participation and representation by the end of this decade.
