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2025 VFL season

The 2025 VFL season was the 143rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), a second-tier Australian rules football competition played in the states of Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. The season began on 21 March and concluded on 21 September.

won the premiership for the third time, defeating by ten points in the 2025 VFL Grand Final.

Background

Death of Dale Tapping

On 4 February 2025, coach Dale Tapping died, two years after he was diagnosed with myeloma, an aggressive form of blood cancer. Essendon had appointed Tapping as its VFL coach for the 2025 season only several months prior on 11 October 2024. He had previously served as 's VFL coach from 2013 until the end of the 2016 season, and was named VFL Coach of the Year in 2016.

Cameron Joyce, who coached in the AFL Women's (AFLW) from 2022 season 6 until he was dismissed at the end of the 2024 season, was announced as Essendon's new VFL coach on 24 February 2025.

Practice matches

Clubs held practice matches beginning on 15 February 2025. A carnival featuring the six Victorian-based standaline clubs was held at Mars Stadium in Ballarat on 1 March 2025.

There was speculation that the Tasmania Football Club would enter the VFL in 2025. Instead, AFL Tasmania introduced a Senior Talent Academy, which included representative games against and on 22 March 2025 and 4 May 2025 respectively. On 5 September 2025, Tasmania was granted a licence to compete in the VFL, starting in 2026.

Broadcast rights

In September 2022, the Australian Football League (AFL) announced a seven-year, $4.5 billion broadcast rights deal with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra, effective from the 2025 season. This included Saturday matches (outside of marquee matches) becoming exclusive to Foxtel and Kayo for the first eight rounds of the season, while all Saturday night matches in the last eight rounds of the season would be exclusive to Seven.

As a result, Seven moved its VFL coverage from Sunday afternoon to 7pm on Saturdays, airing in Victoria on 7mate. On 17 March 2025, the VFL announced that one game per round would be broadcast on Saturday nights, with fixture changes implemented accordingly.

Clubs

Venues and affiliations

Coach appointments

Club leadership

Home-and-away 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

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Progression by round

Finals series

All starting times are local time. Source: afl.com.au

Wildcard finals

Qualifying finals and elimination finals

Semi-finals

Preliminary finals

Grand Final

Teams

Awards

Team of the Year

Club best and fairest

Season notes

  • Because of redevelopment at Swinburne Centre, played a number of its home games at Holm Park Recreation Reserve in Beaconsfield, where it had an agreement with Cardinia Shire Council. Additionally, Richmond was officially designated as the home team in its round 7 match against at Casey Fields, as well as its round 9 match against at Windy Hill. Richmond's round 3 match against was moved from Holm Park to Swinburne Centre, making it the only VFL match played at the venue for the 2025 season.
  • On 30 June 2025, announced it would end its reserves affiliation with in the VFL following the 2025 season, with both clubs fielding their own teams in 2026.
  • On 20 August 2025 (following the conclusion of the home-and-away season), the reverted to being called the "Preston Football Club", a decision that was first announced three months earlier. At the same time, it was reported that the club could be in danger of folding because of debt, with the club asking the AFL to financially assist. Less than two months later, the club's VFL licence was revoked, excluding it from the league from 2026, and the club subsequently entered voluntary liquidation on 15 December 2025.

Representative match

An interstate representative match was played during the AFL Gather Round for the second consecutive season, taking place in Tanunda in the Barossa Valley region. coach Zane Littlejohn was coach of the team.

Scoreboard

See also

Notes

References