The 2016 VFL season was the 135th season of the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

(VFL), a second-tier

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

competition played in the state of Victoria. 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.

League membership and affiliations

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 The City of Ballarat is a local government area in the west of the state of Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of and, in June 2023, had a population of 118,137. It is primarily urban with the vast majority of its population living in the ...

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. 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 The Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) was the oldest and largest Australian rules football league for women in the world, consisting of 47 clubs from Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia across seven divisions with a total of over ...

, and was aligned and co-branded with the VFL to improve market penetration.

Premiership season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Ladder

Finals series

Qualifying and Elimination Finals

Semi-finals

Preliminary Finals

Grand Final

Awards

* The Frosty Miller Medal was won by Ahmed Saad (

Coburg Coburg ( , ) is a Town#Germany, town located on the Itz (river), Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Ernestine duchies, Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only ...

), who kicked 49 goals during the home-and-away season. *The

J. J. Liston Trophy The J. J. Liston Trophy is awarded annually to the best and fairest senior player in the Victorian Football League (VFL), which was formerly known as the Victorian Football Association (VFA). It is named after J. J. Liston, J.J. Liston, a busine ...

was won by Michael Gibbons ( Williamstown), who polled 17 votes. George Horlin-Smith ( Geelong reserves) finished second with 15 votes, and Ben Jolley (Williamstown) and Toby Pinwill (

Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of the Melbourne central business district, located within the Cities of City of Melbourne, Melbourne and City of Port Phillip, Port Phillip Local government ...

) were equal third with 14 votes. *The Fothergill–Round Medal was won by Luke Ryan (

). *The Development League premiership was won by Box Hill. Box Hill 26.16 (172) defeated Casey 10.7 (67) in the Grand Final, played at North Port Oval on 18 September as a curtain-raiser to the seniors first preliminary final.

Notable events

*In August, the Frankston Football Club, struggling with debts in excess of $1,000,000 and a downturn in the profitability of its poker machine licence, went into

voluntary administration As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions, similar to bankruptcy in the United States. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry on ...

. The club's VFL licence was terminated the following month, in the week after the VFL Grand Final, resulting in the club missing the 2017 season before being readmitted in 2018 after resolving its financial issues.

References

{{VFA/VFL seasons Victorian Football League seasons VFL