Mark Ricciuto Says Umpires Should Stay In Charge Of Brownlow Medal Voting

Brownlow Medallist Mark Ricciuto says that umpires should still be the ones voting on the prestigious award, in response to Grant Thomas suggesting the responsibility is taken off the decision makers.

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"To come up with different people to award the Brownlow Medal, I’d like to hear his thoughts on who you’d pick," Roo said on Roo, Ditts & Loz for Breakfast.

"Do you pick a journo? Why do they know anymore about it than an umpire?

"Do you pick a past player? I’ve seen past players pick the best players on radio stations and you go 'what game were you watching?'.

"Are you gonna pay three people to sit in a grandstand just to pick Brownlow votes each week… there’s plenty of reasons why you wouldn’t want to change it."

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Retired umpire Dean Margetts agrees with Roo, saying on Xav & Michelle for Breakfast in Perth yesterday that the votes should sit with the umpires.

"I still honestly believe the umpires are in the best position to make the award for the Brownlow," he said to Lachy Reid, filling in for Xavier Ellis.

"That’s what makes it sacrosanct. It’s the umpire’s award, it’s not the Triple M player of the year, it’s not a sponsored award, it’s the umpire’s award and that’s what makes it special."

Thomas’s comments about removing umpires from Brownlow voting came following four men from Melbourne including an AFL field umpire being arrested after suspicious betting patterns on this year’s count were flagged with the AFL.

The men were arrested over the alleged release of voting tallies from matches this year.

"It's alleged that a person with knowledge of the voting tally of these matches distributed the information to a group of people known to them," a police spokesperson said.

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