A female umpire has sensationally alleged she was sacked by the AFL just five weeks into her role as talent scout because she exposed widespread abuse against women in the game.
Libby Toovey was the AFL’s Female Umpiring Talent Scout, joining the organisation in January this year after first setting foot on a field to officiate way back in 2006, according to her LinkedIn profile.
A highly trained schoolteacher, Toovey followed her dream, taking a break from the classroom to join the game’s governing body and develop female umpires, who are still underrepresented in the game.
A hugely experienced ump, she created history as one of two female umpires to be part of the first AFLW season, and also broke ground in 2015 when she was part of the first all-women crew to officiate a game in Victoria’s elite junior competition, the TAC Cup.
Together with her many years of experience with the whistle, skills as a schoolteacher and athleticism from playing amateur footy with the Old Caulfield Grammarians, she seemed the ideal staffer to up the standard and amount of female umpires.
But the situation unravelled just five weeks into her appointment.
Libby Toovey was sacked from her female umpiring role at the AFL after just five weeks. She claims it was because she was a whistleblower who revealed inappropriate behaviour towards female umpires
AFL headquarters in Melbourne was the venue for an information night for female umpires that Toovey alleges uncovered claims of abuse and harassment – and she accuses the league of ignoring the results before sacking her
After an information night at AFL headquarters for 17 prospective female umpires that involved some stories about the hurdles pioneering goal umpire Chelsea Roffey faced, Toovey said many came to her about their own examples.
‘(There was) systematic abuse that female umpires have suffered, and continue to suffer. This includes sexual assault, verbal harassment, grooming and physical assault,’ she said in a social media post.
With the consent, she says, of the women involved, Toovey went to a manager to discuss the shocking allegations made by those who had confided in her.
She accused said manager of dismissing her concerns before dismissing her altogether.
‘(The manager said) Your job here is done. Can you focus on your work in SA and WA?,’ Toovey told The Age of the interaction, before replying: ‘I feel like I’m being silenced here.’
The Victorian alleges she called another manager, who also dismissed her claims.
She said she was then hauled in for a meeting with the HR department before she was sacked just over a month into the role.
Field umpire Eleni Tee (left, nee Glouftsis) and goal umpire Chelsea Roffey (right) have been trailblazers for female umpires – but it hasn’t been easy
‘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’,’ Toovey said of the meeting.
‘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 denies that and maintains she had the consent of the three women involved.
‘What did they (AFL) do when I told them (about the abuse)? They blind-sided me and fired me a week later,’ she alleged in a social media post.
‘The people who have abused women are all still out there in the footy community. I told them (AFL) three months ago and the perpetrators are still there, (but) I’m not, I got fired and they get to keep their jobs.
‘I wanted to help change the culture from within AFL House but was forced out. Now I guess I’ll have to change it from the outside.’
Ironically, on her first day in the job back in January, she spoke about her excitement over the role and the prospect of making changes.
Toovey posted this selfie after her first day working for the AFL as the female umpire talent scout. Just five weeks later, she was sacked
‘Guys, I survived and thrived at my first day working at the AFL. Bring on all the wonderful challenges and changes that will happen in the umpiring and inclusion space! Thank you to everyone for making Day 1 so bloody great!’ she said alongside a selfie taken outside AFL headquarters.
In response to Toovey’s explosive claims about harassment and abuse being covered up with her sacking, the AFL strongly refuted the suggestions, and said she was instead sacked for ‘multiple breaches of AFL policy’.
‘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 league said in a statement.
‘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.’
Those issues the AFL speaks of were explosive as well.
Last year the report, commissioned by the league and conducted by the University of Sydney – which the AFL did not want made public – was leaked.
Much of what was uncovered was disturbing.
In addition to umpiring, Toovey (right) also plays amateur footy in Victoria with the Old Caulfield Grammarians
A report commissioned by the AFL in 2020 and leaked last year details explosive claims on sexual abuse and harassment of female umpires (umpires are pictured leaving the field after a match at the SCG in 2022)
‘I used to receive messages of nudes that other umpires would send to me,’ one state-league umpire told the report, reported the Herald Sun.
‘And umpires during games would inappropriately touch me, like when we’re umpiring together and things like that. So, that’s what made me quit that level of umpiring because I thought it was too inappropriate and I didn’t know what to do about it at the time.’
Another told the report that she was openly sexually objectified by fellow (male) umpires.
‘I openly overheard a group of guys talking about my boobs at training one night,’ the woman, also a state-league umpire, said.
‘I was walking up the stairs, and I overheard them being literally like, ‘Oh my god, have you seen (name withheld) tits?’ And I turned around and I looked at them, and I was like are you serious?
‘It freaked me out a little bit to be like my god, what do you say like as a group behind my back?’
Toovey and the AFL are set to meet via phone for a Fair Work commission mediation session, though she maintains she doesn’t want money, or her job back.
‘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,’ she said.
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