| Above: | 2000 VFL Premiership Season |
| Label1: | Teams |
| Data1: | 18 |
| Label2: | Premiers |
| Data2: | Sandringham (7th premiership) |
| Label3: | Minor premiers |
| Data3: | Sandringham (5th minor premiership) |
The 2000 VFL season was the 119th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), a second-tier Australian rules football competition played in the state of Victoria. 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 (AFL) reserves competition. Since this season, the VFL has served as a state-level senior competition in which reserves players and reserves teams from most 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.[1] 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.[2]
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.
Under the new arrangement, four AFL clubs entered into affiliations with existing VFL clubs. These were:[3]
A fifth affiliation was established with the creation of a new club, the Murray Kangaroos. The Murray Kangaroos was operated in partnership between the North Melbourne Football Club and the Ovens & Murray Football League, and was based at both Coburg City Oval in Melbourne and the Lavington Sports Ground in Albury. The Murray Kangaroos were affiliated with the Murray Bushrangers from the TAC Cup under-18s competition, which served to complete the VSFL's original vision that all twelve Victorian TAC Cup clubs would be affiliated with a VFL club.[4]
This left six Victorian AFL clubs, all of which entered their reserves teams directly into the VFL. These were: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, Richmond and St Kilda.
After four years, the merger between Preston Bullants senior club and the Northern Knights TAC Cup club was terminated, and the two clubs returned to being separate entities. The senior club, which had competed as the Preston Knights since 1996, became known as the Northern Bullants, and it returned to the red and white colours that it had worn prior to 1996.[5]
With the increased size of the league, the finals were expanded from five clubs to eight clubs. The VFL adopted the same final eight system which was adopted by the AFL in the same season, replacing the McIntyre Final Five which had been in use since 1989.
The Victorian State Football League was superseded by a newly established body, Football Victoria, which administered the league.
As a result of this large suite of changes, the size of the VFL grew from eleven to eighteen clubs, the largest it had been since 1987. The size of the competition during the 2000 season set a new record as the largest to contest the premiership in a single division in VFA/VFL history, a mark which stood until 2021. The clubs were:
Stand alone VFL
AFL reserves teams
AFL reserves affiliated