Sam Confait

The VAFA community reached 13,611 male and female participates, across 35 sections, representing 312 teams from 71 Clubs in 2019.

The largest senior women’s football competition continues to flourish, increasing 8 sections to 10 welcoming RMIT, Richmond Central, La Trobe University, Glen Eira, Parkdale Vultures, Albert Park, St Bernard’s and North Brunswick. The difficulty faced by the VAFA in the competition’s infancy is the grading and regrading of teams which will be a key focus for 2020. Mentone Playing Fields played host to the largest day of VAFA finals we have ever witnessed, as seven Women’s finals matches were played at the one facility creating a festival of football atmosphere. Operationally, traffic management required improvement and additional food outlets to be provided for next season.

On the eve of the season, in the senior men’s competition, both Swinburne University and St Johns notified the VAFA they were unfortunately unable to field two teams in their respective Divisions which left an uneven number of teams in Division 2 and 3. In collaboration and agreement with all participating clubs, this resulted in BYES across both competitions. Swinburne University and St Johns were fixtured as one team clubs in the Thirds competition to consolidate and rebuild.

The U19 and Third competitions were rebranded to align with our senior competitions as ‘Divisions’. Formerly, the Thirds was established to align clubs to their respective senior sections in Premier A, B and C, however due to various factors, the Third Divisions has transitioned to a competitive balance based model.

With the aim to address retention rates and act as a pathway for players no longer eligible for U19 football, the VAFA experimented with an U23 competition. The eight-team competition consisted of clubs across both Premier and Divisional football and provided a point of difference in community footy.

In a new initiative, the VAFA conducted two club forums in 2019 with an aim to ensure clubs have opportunity for input into the future of the competition and provide feedback on current challenges. Operationally, discussion was centred on section structures, length of seasons and progressive solutions for requiring less match day club responsibilities.

The VAFA player points budget was capped at 45 points in 2019. From an administration perspective, auditing processes were strengthened to monitor point allocations whilst the Association experienced significant learnings regarding our rules and specific VAFA criteria for School and University based clubs.

The Independent Integrity Division (IID) extended its requirements from clubs, expanding the Ex-AFL Declaration Form and introducing a Trust Questionnaire whilst the Permit Committee was more active in interviewing players entering our competition to monitor Amateur Status.

The engagement of INTIX enabled consumers to pre-purchase finals tickets online and the distribution of player/official passes replacing the previous outdated gate list system. The implementation of the INTIX system was a significant advancement towards a cashless system which will allow consumers ease of payment and venue access as well as the VAFA to record exact attendance.