2021 VFL season

The 2021 Victorian Football League season is scheduled to be the 139th season of the Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League Australian rules football competition.

2021 VFL
Teams22

The 2021 season will see significant transition in the composition of the league, with the amalgamation of the North East Australian Football League into the VFL and resulting expansion interstate into New South Wales and Queensland. The league will also undergo some shifts as a result of the financial fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had seen the 2020 season cancelled; and, a transition in league rules to strengthen its position as a pathway between underage and professional leagues.

League membership

Amalgamation with the NEAFL

The North East Australian Football League had served as the top state-level league in New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland (and previously for the Northern Territory) since 2011. Throughout its existence, the NEAFL had accommodated the reserves teams of the states' four AFL clubs – Sydney, Greater Western Sydney, Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast – and several stand-alone senior clubs from the regions. The NEAFL's utility as a development league and talent pathway had long suffered as a result of the substantial gap in standard between its weakest teams and players, its strongest teams and players, and AFL level – gaps which had been far more pronounced than in the VFL.[1] The AFL clubs had long been keen for a higher quality league for their reserves teams to contest, and the AFL had been keen to improve the senior development pathways. The high costs of running the NEAFL also became acutely problematic due to the massive financial losses suffered by the football industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] As was the case for the VFL, the 2020 NEAFL season was cancelled due to the pandemic.

In August 2020, it was announced that the NEAFL would amalgamate into the VFL, with all of its clubs afforded the opportunity to join the VFL, over a transitional period in 2021 and 2022.[3] This is expected to provide both the AFL clubs and the northeastern pathway clubs with a higher standard of competition, improving player development and senior pathways in the north east.[4] Six of the NEAFL's nine teams joined the new competition: the Sydney reserves, Greater Western Sydney reserves, Brisbane reserves and Gold Coast reserves, and two stand-alone senior clubs from Queensland: Gold Coast based Southport Sharks and Brisbane based Aspley Hornets. Sydney based Sydney University was offered a licence[5] before ultimately declining due to the cost to compete being too high.[6] The Canberra Demons[7] and Brisbane based Redland both declined to join the merged competition before licenses were offered.[8]

The competition was referred to by the working title 'VFL/East Coast second tier competition' in official correspondence during part of the offseason,[9] before the 'Victorian Football League' was ultimately retained unchanged.[10]

Changes to Victorian clubs

The financial pressures of the pandemic resulted in many AFL clubs seeking lower-cost reserves affiliation options. A new, lowest-cost option was made available to the AFL clubs, under which reserves players would be dispersed throughout the various VFL clubs rather than being affiliated to a single club, but no club took up the option.[3]

Ultimately, the only change for 2021 is that the affiliation between Carlton and the Northern Blues was terminated after eighteen seasons – this had been announced in March 2020, prior to the cancellation of the 2020 season. This affiliation had been high cost for Carlton due to the large amount of money it had been investing in the club as a development pathway in the region.[11][12] Carlton will field its reserves team in the league for the first time since the 2002 season. Furthermore, the administration of the Northern Blues – which had initially announced that it would have to fold without Carlton's financial backing and was not included in the aborted plans for a shortened 2020 season – worked successfully through the year to find a means to remain viable as a stand-alone senior club, and will return to the league under its former Northern Bullants name, and in its traditional red and white colours.[5]

Other notes

No Tasmanian team was introduced to the league in 2021 as part of the expansion interstate; although AFL Tasmania had gained a provisional licence in 2018 to re-establish a Tasmanian team in the VFL from 2021, plans for this were deferred during the pandemic.[4]

The governing bodies announced an intention to take deliberate moves to strengthen the VFL's utility as a pathway league, through which undrafted players from the underage systems could continue to develop and then be drafted into the AFL system. No formal announcements have been made about how this might occur, but it has been reported that age restrictions could be enforced, setting a certain quota of under-21 and under-23 players who must be included on each VFL club playing list. The under-age players would be allocated to clubs on a zoning basis, with each NAB League club and other under-19s system allocated to a specific VFL club or clubs, thus allowing for greater interchange and continuity.[13]

Annual grants from the AFL to the stand-alone VFL clubs, which had been introduced in 2000 when the AFL reserves first amalgamated with the VFL, were abandoned due to the financial pressures of the pandemic. The salary cap for the competition was also significantly reduced, from $380k to $200k,[14] or $100k for AFL reserves teams or those with reserves affiliations.[5] Interstate travel costs for the competition will be financed by the AFL.[6] Consideration will be given to partitioning the league into geographical conferences to minimise the overall travel costs.[13]

The season will see a trial of positional restriction rules, under which each team must have three players inside each 50-metre arc – including one in each goal square – at every kick-in and boundary throw-in. The rule is intended to reduce around-the-ground congestion, and following its trial in the 2021 VFL season trial will be assessed for potential inclusion in the national Laws of the Game for 2022.[15]

Ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts Qualification
1 Aspley 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 Finals
2 Box Hill 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
3 Brisbane reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
4 Carlton reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
5 Casey 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
6 Coburg 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
7 Collingwood reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
8 Essendon reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
9 Footscray reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
10 Frankston 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
11 Geelong reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
12 Gold Coast reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
13 Greater Western Sydney reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
14 North Melbourne reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
15 Northern Bullants 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
16 Port Melbourne 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
17 Richmond reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
18 Sandringham 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
19 Southport 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
20 Sydney reserves 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
21 Werribee 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
22 Williamstown 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
Updated to match(es) played on 20 December 2020. Source: AFL
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.


See also

References
  1. Sarah Olle (17 November 2016). "NEAFL not up to scratch for match hardening, says Rhys Palmer and Jackson Paine". Fox Sports. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  2. "Eastern seaboard second-tier comp on radar, concerns for NEAFL". Australian Football League. 4 May 2020. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  3. Max Laughton (24 August 2020). "VFL to merge with NEAFL, under-18 comps revamped in massive changes to AFL's second tier". Fox Sports. Retrieved 24 August 2020.
  4. Paul Amy; Luke D'Anello (25 August 2020). "VFL, NEAFL merger: AFL to pay for travel, Southport wants in". Leader. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  5. Paul Amy (13 October 2020). "Northern Bullants to return to VFL as a stand-alone club". Leader. Melbourne, VIC. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  6. Paul Amy (29 October 2020). "Twenty-two teams to line up in the VFL next year". Leader. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  7. Gaynor, Jacob (2020-09-01). "Canberra Demons will not take part in the new Eastern Football League". canberrademons. Retrieved 2020-09-01.
  8. "Redland Bombers pull out of new competition". Leader. 2 October 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  9. Paul Amy (30 September 2020). "Name change poser as VFL expands to take in interstate clubs". Leader. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  10. Max Laughton (1 February 2021). "What's in a name? 'VFL' locked in for 2021 season despite teams from NSW and QLD". Fox Sports. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  11. "Carlton and Northern Blues forced to cease alignment". Carlton Football Club. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  12. 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.
  13. Paul Amy (17 September 2020). "Recruiting zones, conferences, list changes in the works for revamped VFL". Leader. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  14. "Grants to go: VFL clubs brace for financial hit". Leader. 1 September 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  15. "Game adjustments for the 2021 Toyota AFL Premiership Season". Australian Football League. 19 November 2020. Retrieved 20 November 2020.
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