While the sport's governing body in the state will not enforce relegation this season while still allowing promotion - ensuring the Suns another season in at least NPL2 - FV has offered all clubs the opportunity to opt out of the season before June 8, subject to the payment of participation fees.
GV Suns president Michael Crisera indicated the club's juniors would more than likely compete but said the senior branch of the club - which encompasses seniors, under-20s and under-18s - was more uncertain to take the field.
With the club more reliant on sponsorship money than match-day takings compared with local football and netball clubs, Crisera remained unclear if the club had the financial capabilities to field its senior sides with local businesses struggling through the coronavirus crisis.
“There'll be fair bit of number crunching, or maybe creative accounting, to see if that can proceed,” he said.
“Definitely player payments will be impacted quite a bit. It will come down to sponsorships and what players are prepared to play for. Those are the tough conversations sporting clubs are having right now, not just in soccer.
“But clubs need to look at the key supporters that are businesses in the area and see what they can do to help.
“The difficult part is the impact this has had on local business, and in turn their ability to support local clubs. There's going to be quite a lot of financial challenges over the next 18 months.
“Local businesses are hurting due to the virus and we potentially will have to ask them for money twice in 18 months.”
FV released guiding principles stating no team would be relegated this season but said promotion remained on the table, meaning competitions would carry more teams into the following campaign.
FV chief executive Peter Filopoulos said his organisation would work with any club that did not feel it was able to compete this season.
“FV understands that the impact of COVID-19 has meant that some clubs would prefer to voluntarily opt out of competition in 2020. This is understandable,” he said.
“Whilst our team will work with all clubs to support their desire to play football this season, if this proves unachievable we will ensure the clubs who decide to opt out from competitions that their position in the football hierarchy is maintained and welcome them back in 2021.“We will take a leadership role with our clubs and work with them on their specific circumstances through this period, including on issues of genuine financial hardship.
“From a football competitions point of view, relegation has been removed from all senior tiers of football and promotion retained.“This provides those clubs that have been impacted significantly by COVID-19 with the certainty that they will not lose their place in Victoria’s football hierarchy in 2020 whilst ensuring clubs with ambition to ascend the hierarchy via promotion can still pursue this dream.”
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