Football Tasmania has today (Friday 6 March) officially been informed that Nelson United Eastern Suburbs will be withdrawing from the Southern Championship and Southern Championship 1 competitions for season 2020.
This represents a potentially significant change to the competitions as we will likely now need to move from the 13/14 team roster model to an 11/12 team model.
Due to the extremely short notice afforded it has been determined that tomorrow's other scheduled games will still be played for competition points regardless of any future changes to rosters brought about by the withdrawal.
Football Tasmania has proposed the following solution to clubs for their feedback with a final determination to be made early next week·
-A bye round will be implemented on the weekend of March 14-15.
-Round 1 of the new roster will begin on March 21. This is in order to maximise alignment of the Southern Championship and NPL Tasmania competitions and allow for club matchdays as recommended by the 2019 Competition's Review.
-The new roster will comprise of 22 rounds, with each side playing each other once home and away, and will finish on August 29.
-Results from this upcoming weekend will replace the corresponding games scheduled in the new roster, giving each of the 10 sides playing this weekend, a total of one bye week across the season.
Other solutions, including replacing Nelson with a bye and maintaining the roster in its current format are also being considered, however this scenario would mean that in 24 of the 26 weeks, multiple teams would be on the bye, and each side would have 4 bye weekends across the season.
A final ruling will be made early next week after feedback has been offered from the participating Championship clubs.