Victorian Premier League

The Victorian Premier League is the highest State level association football competition in Victoria. The competition is administered by Football Federation Victoria, the governing body of football in the state.

Format

The league sits below the A-League and forms a part of the second tier of league football in Australia. It is primarily staged in the Australian winter, and in its current format runs between February and August. The league comprises twelve teams, every team playing each other twice over the course of a 22-round home-and-away season. The team finishing 1st after this stage is crowned the Premier, with the teams finishing 11th and 12th relegated to Victorian State League Division 1.

At the conclusion of the home-and-away season, the top five teams advance to a 4-week Finals Series, conducted using the McIntyre final five system. The team winning the Grand Final at the end of this stage is crowned the Champion and awarded the Victorian Premier League trophy.

History

The league commenced in 1909 with Carlton United being the first champions, and has run continuously except for a three season postponement from 1916-1918 owing to World War 1. After 1945 the league, like fellow state competitions around the country, received a massive boost in numbers and quality with the post-war influx of European migrants, whose dominance was established so effectively that no club that had won the title before 1952, Juventus' first title, has won one since.

Juventus would go...
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