The 1988 Victorian Football Association season was the 107th season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 28th and final season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Coburg Football Club, after it defeated Williamstown in the Grand Final on 18 September by 27 points; it was Coburg's fifth Division 1 premiership. The final Division 2 premiership was won by Oakleigh; it was the club's second Division 2 premiership, and the last premiership ever won by the club in either division.
Association membership
The Association contracted substantially in 1988. Between the end of 1987 and the end of 1988, a total of five teams left the Association: Northcote and Caulfield, who were suspended by the Association in November 1987 Berwick, which withdrew from the Association in November 1987 Waverley, which folded in March 1988 Mordialloc, which withdrew from the Association in May 1988 Additionally, Moorabbin, which had been suspended in May 1987 for the remainder of that season, did not seek re-admission for 1988.
The controversial FORT review from December 1986 was considered instrumental in shaping the clubs' departures. The FORT review had recommended reducing the Association to 12 clubs in one division, with the second division operating as a suburban-level competition with no promotion or relegation between the levels; and, it explicitly named the eleven clubs it proposed to exclude from the rationalised competition. Even though the Association never received a mandate to enforce the FORT recommendations, all five of the clubs who departed saw the FORT review as partly responsible for their demise.
Caulfield
Caulfield, which had been relegated from Division 1 at the end of 1981, had struggled to remain competitive in Division 2. Its financial viability had been borderline throughout its time in Division 2, and the club occasionally struggled to field minor grade teams. The club was also not helped by a clubroom fire in 1985. Its situation deteriorated rapidly in 1987, when the club endured an exodus of 28 players, which it blamed on the uncertainty generated by its exclusion from the FORT blueprint, and from negative publicity generated when Association president Brook Andersen had compared the club to the struggling Geelong West – it ran at a loss of $60,000 during the year and considered itself lucky to have survived.
The club fell behind on its Association levies in July and August 1987, resulting in its suspension from the final match of the 1987 season. By November, the club still owed the Association $11,000 in levies and fines, and on 4 November, the Association executive suspended Caulfield for the 1988 season. The club did not dispute that it was behind on its levies, but believed that the Association suspended it, rather than showing lenience, because of its desire to achieve the FORT's vision of a rationalised competition. The club never returned to the Association, ending its 80-year affiliation which had begun in Brighton in 1908 before moving to Caulfield in 1962. The club merged with the Ashburton Football Club and played in the South East Suburban Football League in 1988.
Northcote
By November 1987, Northcote was found to no longer meet any of the Association's three minimum requirements for a club: it was not financially viable, as it lacked sponsors, had fewer than 100 members, and had no prospects of reversing this problem due to its small local population, and increased competition from soccer as the ethnic demographic in Northcote increased; it could no longer guarantee a home ground as the Northcote Council had been considering ending its tenancy of the Westgarth Street Oval; and it could not guarantee that it could muster enough players to field teams in all three grades. Officially, the club was suspended for the 1988 season on 4 November 1987, but Association president Brook Andersen commented that the club had "effectively resigned" by revealing all of these problems to the Association executive; although, there was some factional infighting within the club, and incoming club president Ian Galbraith, who wanted the club to stay in the Association, claimed that his factional enemies had exaggerated the magnitude of the club's problems in a deliberate attempt to bait the Association into expelling it. The club never returned, ending its 80-year affiliation with the Association, and soon disbanded.