Winter season transition arrangements - Cricket to Football

In 2020, AFL Victoria and Cricket Victoria (with support from the Victorian Government) worked together to establish a framework that addressed the transition from the 2020 winter seasons to 2020/21 summer seasons and then back to 2021 winter seasons. Cricket also established similar agreements with soccer and other sports.

In 2020, AFL Victoria and Cricket Victoria (with support from the Victorian Government) worked together to establish a framework that addressed the transition from the 2020 winter seasons to 2020/21 summer seasons and then back to 2021 winter seasons. Cricket also established similar agreements with soccer and other sports.

As we approach the timing for a transition from cricket to football seasons, AFL Victoria and Cricket Victoria have confirmed the organisations will pursue the agreement shared publicly in May 2020.

Key aspects highlighted by both organisations are:

• Local Government Authorities remain critical to help support a smooth transition from cricket to football seasons
• All Community Football Leagues throughout Victoria are encouraged to commence their seasons at any time from 1 April 2021 onwards with only a small number of shared cricket/football grounds earmarked for Men's Premier Cricket finals during April not available for football matches during the early weeks of April. Associations using any affected shared grounds are encouraged to not delay their season starts, however, structure their fixture to avoid scheduling on the affected grounds during the cricket finals
• Women's Premier Cricket and Women's Community Cricket finals will be complete by mid-March and all community cricket seasons throughout the state (excluding Premier Cricket) were strongly encouraged to have completed their seasons before the end of March 2021
• For the three weekends of the Kookaburra Premier Cricket (Men's divisions) finals, the number of grounds required across the Easter weekend is sixteen, followed by eight Preliminary Finals games the following weekend and then four Grand Finals on the weekend of April 17/18. All matches across the three weeks are scheduled as one day matches played on Saturdays with the following day set down as reserve days subject to weather. This represents less than 1% of all cricket finals due to be played this season. The finals grounds will be selected by Cricket Victoria based on a combination of factors - including earned hosting rights, quality of grounds and facilities, travel and minimising disruption to other sports
• For clarity, AFL Victoria and Cricket Victoria encourage all clubs throughout Victoria that use shared facilities to, as always, work collaboratively to ensure minimal disruption during handover and for football clubs to have priority access as soon as grounds are no longer required to host cricket finals
• Cricket Victoria will work closely with AFL Victoria to keep it updated on finals planning
• AFL Victoria and Cricket Victoria have agreed to work collaboratively on any contingency planning should the winter 2021 football seasons be impacted by COVID-19 and will commence discussions in the coming weeks

Of the 43 grounds currently used for Premier Cricket, only a minority of grounds will be used for finals. Some are sole cricket use, some shared with other sports and most are shared use grounds between cricket and football. These grounds will be prioritised for cricket finals under the existing agreement during that time:

Ground Availability for Men's Kookaburra Premier Cricket Finals

Green = Potential use | Grey = confirmed not to be used

N.B.: This list of venues is accurate as at the date of publication and will be adjusted (reduced in number), the closer it gets to the commencement of the Men's Kookaburra Premier Cricket finals