The National Premier Leagues Victoria 3, commonly referred to as NPL Victoria 3, is a semi-professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

league in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The league is the third-highest in the Victorian league system, behind

NPL Victoria The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer lea ...

and NPL Victoria 2, and forms part of the fourth tier of the overall Australian pyramid. The league was created from the bottom halves of NPL Victoria 2 East and West, when the league was reorganised from two geographic conferences to two separate vertical NPL divisions. The competition is administered by

Football Victoria Football Victoria is the state governing body for soccer in Victoria, Australia. It is affiliated with Football Australia, the sport's national governing body. History Football Victoria began operation in 1884 under the name Anglo Australian F ...

, the governing body of the sport in the state. Due to start 2020 season NPL Victoria 3 has been cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Format

The NPL Victoria 3 is contested by 12 teams. Each team plays home and away against teams against all other teams in the league for a total of 22 fixtures per team each season. The winner of each conference gains automatic promotion to the NPL Victoria 2 while 2nd in both conferences will play off in a final; the winner to play the third last team in the NPL Victoria for entry into the top flight. Due to the entry of

Western United Western United Football Club is an Australian professional football club. The club is based in the western Melbourne suburb of Truganina, the club aims to represent western Victoria, incorporating the western suburbs of Melbourne; the region ...

into the

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

, NPL Victoria competition rules contain a provision allowing the new professional side to place a development team directly into NPL Victoria 3. This will occur in 2021, so the league would compete for that season with 13 teams, with promotion/relegation rules for State League 1 temporarily modified to revert the structure back to twelve clubs per league.

Current clubs (2023)

After the cancellation of both the 2020 season and the 2021 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was decided that no promotion/relegation would apply for the following season.

Western United FC Youth Western United Football Club Youth is the youth system of Western United Football Club based in Truganina, Melbourne, Australia. The youth teams will play in the National Premier Leagues Victoria 2, the second level of soccer in Victoria, A ...

joined the league as a new team in the 2021 season. The following clubs will take part in the 2023 NPL Victoria 3 season:

History

In 2018, pressures from member clubs and a desire to re-evaluate league structure and organisation lead

to commission a report into how the NPL Victoria leagues could be re-worked. Among a series of recommendations on improvements to the youth structure, the report recommended that NPL Victoria 2 - then a two-conference division with ten teams each in an east-west split, contesting 28 fixtures each per season - should be reformed with NPL Victoria 2 turned into a single division of 12 teams and a new 12-team division - NPL Victoria 3 - created. The proposed changes were agreed, and to enact the split the top six teams of each NPL Victoria 2 conference in the 2019 season were given places in the 2020 Victoria 2 competition, with the bottom four of the two conferences all relegated to Victoria 3. Four additional teams were promoted from

Victorian State League 1 State League 1 is a semi-professional association football league in Victoria, Australia. Sitting at level 4 of the Victorian league system, below the three NPL Victoria divisions, it forms part of the fifth tier of the overall Australian leag ...

to make up the numbers. Among the sides moved to NPL Victoria 3 were the NPL development sides of A-League duo Melbourne City and

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...

Past winners

References

Notes

External links

Football Victoria website
{{AUS fb state Vic Soccer leagues in Victoria (Australia) Recurring sporting events established in 2020 2020 establishments in Australia Sports leagues established in 2020 Professional sports leagues in Australia Fourth level football leagues in Asia