2000 VFL season
| 2000 VFL Premiership Season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 18 |
| Premiers |
Sandringham (7th premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Sandringham (5th minor premiership) |
|
← 1999
2001 →
|
|
The 2000 Victorian Football League season was the 119th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Sandringham Football Club, after defeating North Ballarat by 31 points in the Grand Final on 27 August.
The league underwent significant changes for the 2000 season, being merged with the Australian Football League reserves competition. Since this season, the VFL has served as a state-level senior competition in which reserves players and some reserves teams from the Victorian AFL clubs compete.
The Victorian State Football League had operated two open-age senior competitions during the 1990s: the Victorian Football League, which it took control of in 1995, and the AFL Reserves, which it had operated since 1992. The AFL Reserves competition was contested by the reserves teams of eleven Australian Football League clubs: those of the ten Victorian clubs and that of the Sydney Swans. The VSFL had intended to merge the two into a single competition which would serve as an AFL reserves competition, a state-level senior competition and a development pathway from the 1995 season; however there was such significant opposition from the AFL clubs against abolishing their dedicated reserves competition that they had threatened to use their power to sack the AFL Commission over the changes. Consequently, the two competitions had run in parallel between 1995 and 1999.
Prior to the 1998 season, the AFL again announced plans to amalgamate the VFL and the AFL reserves into a single competition, giving the clubs two years to make arrangements before the combined competition was to begin from the 2000 season. Although most of the AFL clubs were still opposed to the changes, on this occasion they accepted them.
Under the new arrangement, AFL clubs were given two options: they could continue to operate their own reserves teams, fielding them in the VFL; or, they could enter a reserves affiliation with one or more existing VFL clubs. Under the affiliation structure, listed players who were not selected in the senior AFL team would be made available to play for their affiliated VFL club; the VFL club would then make up the balance of the team from its own playing list.
...
Wikipedia