Teenagers are increasingly carrying the load of umpiring in junior and senior club sporting games, according to the Australian Sports Commission.
More than one million people in Australia volunteer in sports as an official and almost 15 per cent are teenagers, the commission's latest data shows.
Cleo Campbell, 15, lives in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, and plays and umpires netball.
She especially enjoys officiating younger players' games.
"Little kids, sometimes they don't really know what they are doing because they are inexperienced," Cleo said.
"I like it because it helps you learn things about the game as well."
Australian Sports Commission coaching director Cameron Tradell said coaching and umpiring were impressive additions to a young person's CV.
"Imagine putting down that you've got great stakeholder management, amazing communication skills, that you're able to problem solve," he said.
"You're able to give people an example of that through what you've done on the sporting field."
'Got to draw a line'
Cleo said she has had parents arguing from the sidelines about her calls in junior games.
"I do think there's some poor behaviour at junior sport," Mr Tradell said.
He said the issue needed to be looked at because it was not fair to young people striving doing their best.
"I don't want any child to go through that or any young person or adult for that matter," Mr Tradell said.
"Sometimes we get passion for something mixed up with poor behaviour … we've got to draw a line and we definitely need to be focused on how we support people in that area."
Ben Whitby, an adult rugby league referee based in Wagga Wagga, said his sport also relied on junior officials.
"If you go down to Wagga juniors on a Saturday, you'll see 30 games getting played and 20 of those will be getting done by kids, aged 13 through to 15,16,” he said.
Mr Whitby said his sport had trouble keeping young officials in the game as they get older.
He has started engaging retired players to umpire.
"We've got a fellow that's joined the ranks in the last couple of years — he played first grade for Temora and he's come in," Mr Whitby said.
