Regrading and Fixture Update

With the opening four rounds of the 2025 season complete, the process of regrading and updating fixtures is well underway.

The Football Operations team has been in communication with Clubs regarding the updated structures after assessing results from the first four rounds.

Regrading means putting competitive balance ahead of structural integrity and equalisation.

The next task is to re-fixture every division that has been affected, which is all six Women’s Divisions, all four Under 19 Men’s Divisions, and all six Thirds Men’s Divisions, which is unprecedented and an enormous job in the timeframes.

The plan is to prioritise and get all Women’s fixtures sent to Clubs and completed in the next 24-48 hours, and then Under 19’s in the 24-48 hours after that. Further information regarding the updated Thirds Men’s fixtures will be released in due course.

Initial fixture requests and venue accessibility are being used in the re-fixture but please understand this may not now be possible as new opponents are entering your Division, and in some cases a Bye now exists.

An updated Fixture Calendar has been released to show Division that now have a Final 5 system (see below).

Updated fixtures for Round 5 onwards will be available on the VAFA Website as they’re released.

Update: May 7, 11am

Fixture Update for Women’s Divisional, Under 19’s Men, and Thirds Men.

Due to the number of divisions that need to be re-fixtured, and the complexities and hours associated with such a task, we are not in a position to completely populate all divisions season fixtures before this weekend.

The intention now is to at least have all division’s fixtures for this weekend and possibly next weekend completed, to allow us more time to accurately complete the remaining fixtures.

Fixtures for the next 1-2 weeks will be communicated to clubs once they are done, and they will be uploaded into PlayHQ asap for Umpire allocations.

We appreciate this causes inconvenience on multiple levels, and we are working to get this task completed as quickly and accurately as possible.

Update: May 20, 3pm

Fixtures for Round 7 and 8 across all Divisions will be completed by the end of today, with the remaining Rounds becoming live in PlayHQ by the end of the next week.

Once we have confirmed completed fixtures in each Division, we will then update the ladders to reflect regrading / forfeits, and if necessary, adjusting to a match ratio format.

Affected Clubs will be notified via email once this occurs.