Running from February to September each year, the league sees teams play 26 regular season fixtures, once at home and once away against each other club.

[1] The league premier qualifies as Victoria's representative in the national finals series, whilst the champion plays against the Dockerty Cup winner in the FV Community Shield.

After 1945 the league, like fellow state competitions around the country, received a massive boost in numbers and quality with the post-war influx of European migrants, whose dominance was established so effectively that no club which had won the title before 1952, Juventus' first title, has won one since.

From 1962 until 1976 the league was largely dominated by South Melbourne Hellas and Footscray JUST, which won 11 titles between them.

The 2005 season initially saw crowds attending in record numbers to witness the return of old derbies such as that between South Melbourne and Heidelberg United, but with the formation of the A-League filling the void of a national domestic league, 2006 saw a sharp decline in attendances.

The Australian Institute of Sport experiment was largely derided by the local clubs, and after their removal from the competition in 2008, the league reverted to 12 teams and a Top 5 Finals-Series in 2009.

However, the concept of a youth development squad was reintroduced in 2010 with the National Training Centre team playing in midweek fixtures throughout the season but not for competition points.

In 2011 the team, mostly comprising players from the Melbourne Victory youth squad, was renamed Victorian Training Centre Football and was eligible to score competition points for its matches but ineligible to qualify for the finals series or be relegated.

On 15 September 2013, Victoria Police arrested up to ten people, including Southern Stars FC players David Obaze, Nick McKoy and Joe Woolley as well as the coach, Zaya Younan, for allegations of match fixing.

[3][4] Although Football Federation Victoria's initial proposal was halted with the announcement of a deferral in November 2013 after several clubs objected to the process for selecting teams.

The league combines aspects of both the traditional European-style round-robin and Australian-style finals series within its competition format.

[7] The team ranked first at the end of the regular season is termed the premiers, and becomes Victoria's entry for the national NPL finals.

The finals take place over three weeks, with teams entering the series based on their respective finishes in the regular season.