Richmond has been handed a $4000 fine by the VFL after the league issued a please explain to the club's coach Jack Madgen earlier in the week.
Madgen has now been handed a two-week suspended sentence, as reported by the Herald Sun, after he approached umpires at halftime of the club's match last weekend.
The suspended sentence will be in place until the end of 2027.
The club has accepted that there should be no on-field dialogue between umpires and coaching staff.
Madgen, who played 49 games for Collingwood from 2018-22, took control of the senior coaching reigns at Richmond VFL for the 2026 season. The Tigers have won three games from 11 matches.
The incident occurred during Round 13 of the VFL season - which Richmond lost to North Melbourne by 63 points - when the 33-year-old attempted to gain further understanding of an umpiring decision made during the first half of the game.
He has also been accused of allegedly abusing an umpire during a match earlier in the season.
Under the AFL's rules and guidelines, only the captain of a team can approach an umpire for further clarification on specific rulings or concerns.
Rules and umpires are the biggest talking point in the league at present, with Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick and North Melbourne player Jy Simpkin both being reprimanded in recent weeks for their comments on the state of umpiring.
Well – it’s established that only a Captain can approach the umpires regarding a decision (or to get “clarification”), this has always been the case since responsibility for adjudicating the game was taken from captains and umpires were introduced. So in this the VFL is certainly correct.
However it does sit uncomfortably within the context of the league silencing all criticism of officials despite overtly atrocious umpiring (with the associated “vindications” sitting mostly on “frees given” rather than the real problems of “decisions not made” – perhaps a better term might be the “arbitrary application of the game’s rule”)
In a sense, it’s “technically correct” but outside the main issue – which remains “silenced”.