The 2020 Bendigo Amateur Soccer League senior championship season has been cancelled.
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In a year the league was set to celebrate its 50th season, the division one, division two and women's championship competitions won't be played.
BASL president Aaroon Shooter said last week's decision by the state government to delay full contact training and competitive sport for those over the age of 18 was the final straw for clubs.
"Adding four to six weeks to the current dates left us with not enough time in terms of a quantity of games for a season,'' Shooter said.
"We were really left with no other decision.
"The formal competitive season has been called off, but we'll look at putting together some sort of football product later in the year when, or if, the restrictions relax.
"That could be some sort of Knockout Cup or something similar, we're not sure yet.
"We won't even engage in that process until we know 100 per cent what a timeline would look like.
"The constant change has made clubs tired of the process... so we'll evaluate things later in the year when we know what we can do."
Shooter said the clubs were unanimous in calling the senior championship season off.
"Clubs were disappointed, but they realised they had no choice left because the continued uncertainty in the football community was starting to wear thin,'' he said.
Read more: BASL's rocky road to get juniors on the park
The absence of a senior competition does leave a financial hole in the BASL budget.
"It's not insignificant...but it will be a challenge,'' Shooter said.
"We'd budgeted for a senior competition this year and now we don't have that. We'll tighten the purse strings.
"We've done a lot of work to reduce our cost base where we can to keep the league sustainable because we want to be here for 2021.
"We're doing as well as we can."
The Youth division for players under the age of 18 will play, with the league hoping the season will kick-off on the weekend of July 25-26.
Traditionally, Youth division matches have been played on Sundays as part of the senior schedule, but this year the league is looking at moving those matches to Saturdays.
"The Youth division has been opened up to as many teams as clubs have available,'' Shooter said.
"Games may be moved to Saturdays so that clubs can wrap up all their junior and Youth matches on the same day.
"Keeping Youth matches on a Sunday could stretch club resources unnecessarily.
"If some clubs can't fit all their matches in on a Saturday then we might have to look at some Sunday games.
"We've got a short turnaround to get the season started next weekend, but we'll do our best to get the first two rounds fixtured and then work out the rest from there."
Depending on the number of teams entered, BASL hopes the Youth division will fit in a championship season plus finals.
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