MASTERS SUMMER LEAGUE

SEASON 7 STRUCTURE 

 

Competition Structure - S7

This will be the structure for this year, keeping to a 16 team limit.

 

Seeding

• Each team is ranked/seeded based on their standing at the end of previous season with new teams at the bottom.
  • We aim that this process will becomes legacy so teams always try to get as high up to avoid a harder draw the following year.
• Team are placed in to a group based on their seeding and decided via a snake draft, this ensures:
  • We avoid all winning finalists in the same group. (this year only)
  • Snake order is reversed for Division 2 so Grand Final Winners are not in the same group as Division 1 Grand Final Winners
  • The average seeding rank for each division is 8.5, ensuring fairness and an even level of difficulty (noting that any new team will increase that difficulty depending on performance)

 

Team Groups

Group A

Seeding	Team	Position	Snake
1	Sailors Rest	Winner - Div 1 Grand Final	1
4	Evo Solar Falcons	Runner Up - Div 1 3rd v 4th Final	1
5	Barwon SC Masters	Winner - Div 1 5th v 6th Final	1
8	Armstrong United FC	Runner Up - Div 1 7th v 8th Final	1
10	Unathletico	Runner Up - Div 2 Grand Final	1
11	Blackmans	Winner - Div 2 3rd v 4th Final	1
14	Elephant and Castle Hotel	Runner Up - Div 2 5th v 6th Final	1
15	FC Leopold	Winner - Div 2 7th	1

 

Group B

Seeding	Team	Position	Snake
2	Surf Coast FC	Runner Up - Div 1 Grand Final	2
3	Boca Masters	Winner - Div 1 3rd v 4th Final	2
6	Geelong Rangers Masters	Runner Up - Div 1 5th v 6th Final	2
7	Bennetts Winery FC	Winner - Div 1 7th v 8th Final	2
9	Barwon Munich	Winner - Div 2 Grand Final	2
12	Security Collective Sharks	Runner Up - Div 2 3rd v 4th Final	2
13	FC United	Winner - Div 2 5th v 6th Final	2
16	New Team - TBC	New Team	2

 

 

Format

• Teams in the above groups play each other once.
• After those 7 games the groups will split to 2 divisions, Division 1 and Division 2. Teams will carry their points and goal difference in to the finals.
  • The top 4 from each group go in to Division 1 - they play the 4 teams they have not played before from the other division
  • The same for the bottom 4 from each group go in to Division 2 - playing the teams from the other division.
• There is no finals as such, consider it as a finals group – We have four games where the top and bottom teams play similar ability teams with overall points winner of Division 1 crowned the MSL Champions.
• The format means that there will be 11 games over the season, 7 group games and then 4 finals games.
  • We will not have a finals match in the last week, instead all 4 finals games will contribute to your overall points tally, however to ensure the final game day excitement the teams finishing in the same position in their groups will play against each other in the final week, i.e. 1^st v 1^st, 2^nd v 2^nd etc so could be the most evenly matched games for the season, and may decide our 2026 winners or those seedings for MSL Season 8.

 

 

Gameweeks

 

For the above to work we need 11 gameweeks, this can be accommodated by the below. This incorporates end of season feedback about starting in December, finishing earlier for State League challenges and avoiding public holidays where possible.

 

This includes the following:

• 2 weeks before Xmas
• Play 1 public holiday weekend only (23^rd January 2025) – Day to be confirmed
• Finish the comp on 14^th March 2026 (noting that State leagues kicked off on 21^st March last year)
• We note that Friday night’s will be a challenge with 8 fixtures, this will mean we will need a minimum of 3 pitches.
• Given the goals of the competition to promote engagement with each other, splitting gameweeks to Friday and Saturday will be considered in limited circumstances.

 

 

Weekend Date	Game	Comments
6/12/2025	Group Game 1
13/12/2025	Group Game 2
10/01/2026	Group Game 3
17/01/2026	Group Game 4
23/01/2026	Group Game 5	Proposed Friday night before Australia Day long weekend
31/01/2026	Group Game 6
7/02/2026	Group Game 7	Top 4 teams from each group go in to Top and Bottom 4 to Bottom Division - Carry points and G-D
14/02/2026	Division Split From Now Team from Other Group 1	1st plays 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 2nd plays 1st, 3rd and 4th, 3rd plays 1st, 2nd and 4th, 4th plays 1st, 2nd and 3rd
21/02/2026	Team from Other Group 2
28/02/2026	Team from Other Group 3
14/03/2026	Team from Other Group 4

 

Master Summer League Inc
ABN: 27 679 941 325