2017 VFL season

2017 VFL
Teams 14
← 2016
2018 →

The 2017 Victorian Football League season will the 136th season of the Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League Australian rules football competition. The competition will run from April until September 2017.

League membership

At the end of the 2016 season, AFL Victoria terminated the licence of the Frankston Football Club due to its financial position, which was no longer considered viable. The club had suffered a severe downturn in the profitability of its pokies licence over the previous few years, and by 2016 the machines were generating a loss for the club.[1] The club terminated the pokies licence in May 2016, but by that time owed more than $1,000,000, both to the state gaming regulators and other creditors. The club went into voluntary administration in August,[2] and the club's VFL licence was terminated the following month, in the week after the VFL Grand Final.[3][4] The club's immediate existence was saved when creditors, including the gaming regulators, agreed to waive more than 90% of the club's debt; and while the club will not make a return to the VFL in 2017, it intends to improve its off-field viability and seek re-entry in the future, from as early as 2018 if it can meet requirements.[5]

There had been an expectation over the previous few years that the Australian Football League's St Kilda Football Club would terminate its reserves affiliation with Sandringham at the end of 2016 and enter a stand-alone reserves team into the VFL. However, after renegotiations during 2016, a new affiliation deal was signed the two clubs to begin in 2017. The new deal changed the nature of the affiliation, expanding St Kilda's involvement in Sandringham's operation: this included removing a stipulation from the previous agreement that no more than 14 St Kilda listed players could play in Sandringham's senior team in any given match. The deal will also result in the club playing three games per year in St Kilda colours from the 2018 season at St Kilda's former home ground Moorabbin Oval.[6]

Consequently, the size of the VFL was reduced from fifteen teams to fourteen.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Christian Tatman (20 May 2016). "Frankston Dolphins Football Club dumps loss-making poker machines at gaming room". Frankston Standard Leader. Frankston, VIC. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  2. ↑ Paul Amy (27 August 2016). "Frankston Dolphins VFL club forced into administration with debts of more than $500,000". Frankston Standard Leader. Frankston, VIC. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "AFL Victoria terminates Frankston Dolphins' VFL licence". Frankston Standard Leader. Frankston, VIC. 26 September 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  4. ↑ "Frankston FC decision". SportsTG. 30 September 2016. Retrieved 30 September 2016.
  5. ↑ Christian Tatman (4 November 2016). "Troubled Frankston Dolphins has 90 per cent of debt slashed". Frankston Standard Leader. Frankston, VIC. Retrieved 13 November 2016.
  6. ↑ Caroline Wilson (25 August 2016). "St Kilda and Sandringham to join forces in VFL". The Age. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
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