2020 VFL season

The 2020 Victorian Football League season, will be the 139th season of the Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League Australian rules football competition.

2020 VFL
Teams8

The season was delayed, and then ultimately shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it will be played between August 2020 and October 2020, and will feature only eight clubs, with no AFL-listed players involved for the first time since 1999.

Impact of 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Preparations for the 2020 season featured all fifteen clubs from 2019, but the season was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which was formally declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020, three weeks prior to the scheduled start of the premiership season. Governmental restrictions on non-essential public gatherings during the pandemic meant that, as a minimum, matches would need to be played before empty stadiums, as was planned for the Australian Football League;[1] however, AFL clubs with VFL reserves teams or affiliates had separate concerns that their players could be exposed to the virus when playing in the VFL, since the state league would not be able to offer the same level of medical and quarantine protections that the fully professional league could. AFL clubs began to withdraw their AFL-listed players from their VFL preseason programs,[2][3] before the start of the VFL season was suspended indefinitely on 16 March.[4] The AFL season was suspended shortly afterwards.

Soon after, Carlton ended its reserves affiliation with the Northern Blues. Carlton had been investing significant money in the VFL club and in developing it as a pathway to senior football, but the financial impact of the pandemic forced Carlton to make significant cuts to its expenses, and ending its affiliation was one of these cuts. The Northern Blues club, which entered the VFA in 1903 as the Preston Football Club and had won four Division 1 premierships during its history, was by this stage reliant on Carlton for its financial viability; as a result, the club dropped out of the league after 101 years of membership, and was wound up. Carlton is now expected to adopt a lower-cost strategy by fielding a stand-alone reserves team when AFL players are next released to play in the VFL.[5][6]

After months of uncertainty, it was agreed on 16 June to play a shortened VFL season, with training to start from 13 July and the season to begin on 1 August.[7] Significantly, however, all AFL clubs were required to continue to keep AFL-listed players away from the state league systems for the entire season, in order to better control their quarantine environments and avoid risk to the AFL season; this means that AFL reserves teams were unable to contest the restarted season, and the three remaining clubs with reserves affiliations – Box Hill, Casey and Sandringham – will temporarily play as standalone senior clubs for the first time in two decades,[8] and were allowed to top up their playing lists, including getting first selection of any VFL-listed players from the AFL clubs' reserves teams who were seeking new teams for the season.[9] The season will be a single round robin home-and-away season of only seven rounds - the shortest for a centralized fixture in VFA/VFL history - followed by finals series featuring the top four.

Two of the eight clubs will not play at their normal home venues during the season:

  • Coburg – Piranha Park was under a planned redevelopment during the year. Under the original fixture prior to the suspension, most of the club's home games were scheduled at Highgate Reserve, Craigieburn, with once-off home games were scheduled for: Preston City Oval, Avalon Airport Oval, Mars Stadium and MacPherson Park (Melton).[10]
  • Casey – Casey Fields is shared with the AFL's Melbourne Football Club as a training venue, and required quarantine segregations between the VFL and AFL systems mean that the Casey Demons are not allowed to use the changeroom facilities at Casey Fields. It is yet to be determined which venue Casey will use.[9]

Ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts Qualification
1 Box Hill Hawks 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 Qualification to Finals series
2 Casey Demons 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
3 Coburg 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
4 Frankston 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
5 Port Melbourne 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
6 Sandringham 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
7 Werribee 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
8 Williamstown 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
Source: SportsTG
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.

See also

References
  1. Jon Ralph (13 March 2020). "The AFL season is in limbo with Round 1 to be played without fans". Herald Sun. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  2. Marc McGowan (15 March 2020). "Tigers suspend VFL program because of coronavirus crisis". Australian Football League. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  3. "Western Bulldogs put VFL program on hold". SEN. 16 March 2020. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  4. Riley Beveridge; Mitch Cleary (16 March 2020). "VFL season set to be suspended indefinitely". Australian Football League. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
  5. "Carlton and Northern Blues forced to cease alignment". Carlton Football Club. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  6. Peter Ryan; Daniel Cherny (26 March 2020). "Heartbreak as Carlton call sees VFL club with 138-year history go under". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  7. Jon Ralph (16 June 2020). "VFL set to launch 2020 season on August 1 with eight teams". Retrieved 17 June 2020.
  8. Paul Amy; Jon Ralph (4 May 2020). "Money a sticking point as VFL clubs try to map out a shortened season". Herald Sun. Melbourne, VIC. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  9. "Casey Demons are scrambling to find a home ground for the VFL season". Cranbourne Leader. Cranbourne, VIC. 18 June 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  10. Ben Higgins (18 December 2019). "Coburg taking VFL to Craigieburn, Ballarat and Melton in 2020". Moreland Leader. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
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