Competition: | vfl |
Year: | 2016 |
Teams: | 15 |
Premiers: | Footscray reserves |
Count: | 2 |
Minor Premiers: | Casey Scorpions |
Mpcount: | 4 |
Matches: | 144 |
Top Goal Scorer: | Ahmed Saad 49 goals |
Liston Trophy: | Michael Gibbons (Williamstown) |
Prevseason: | 2015 |
Nextseason: | 2017 |
The 2016 VFL season was the 135th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), a second-tier Australian rules football competition played in the state of Victoria.
There were 15 teams competing in the league. The season started on Saturday 9 April and concluded Sunday 25 September with the VFL Grand Final, won by the Footscray reserves, who defeated the Casey Scorpions by 31 points at Etihad Stadium. It was the Footscray reserves' second VFL premiership, won in just its third season in the competition.
At the end of the 2015 season, ended its ten-year partial reserves affiliation with North Ballarat. The move was in part motivated by a burgeoning partnership between the City of Ballarat and North Melbourne's AFL rivals, with North Melbourne not wishing to continue its investment in the Ballarat area if the rewards were to be reaped by another club. North Melbourne's existing partial affiliation with Werribee was upgraded to a full affiliation, and North Ballarat continued to contest the VFL as a stand-alone senior club.[1]
Beginning in the 2016 season, a new statewide women's football league known as VFL Women's was established by AFL Victoria. The competition was formed from clubs previously established in the Victorian Women's Football League, and was aligned and co-branded with the VFL to improve market penetration.[2]