One round in, relegation already the hot-topic

Following a hot lead on soccer-forum, I found this in section 2.3 in the 2008 FFV Regulations.

2.3 Those Clubs finishing in 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th position at the end of the Men’s Premier League season will be relegated to the Men’s State League Division One (State League 1) in the following season.

Very interesting. Followers of the local scene will recall that four teams were relegated because of this (from something I added to the VPL page on Wikipedia).

The end of the 2006 season also saw a controversial finish to the relegation battle. With three teams finishing on 30 points, Sunshine George Cross were relegated on goal difference. However, a post-season appeal to the tribunal on the grounds that Essendon Royals had fielded a suspended player (Ilcho Mladenovski in round 24) saw the Royals deducted a point and relegated. However the Federation had not notified the Royals of the player's suspension, and got itself out of a potential costly legal battle by retaining both clubs for the 2007 season, and adding the Australian Institute of Sport to even out the numbers, and as the first part of reforms to the competition set to be brought about in 2008.

Thus after relegating 4 sides and promoting 2 last year we were back to 14, and back to 2 up and 2 down as was the previous system. I sent off an email to the FFV to see what's going on, as there is always the chance of a clerical error, though of course that's highly unlikely. Confirmed by someone else making a phone call even before I've gotten a reply that it is up to date. There is evidence to suggest, perhaps, that the proposed V-League is not too far away. And that certain clubs are in for rude shock.