CARLTON will wait until the AFL confirms what its second-tier competitions will look like in the aftermath of the game's shutdown before committing to a potential standalone VFL program.
The club was forced to end its alignment with VFL affiliate the Northern Blues last month due to drastic cost-cutting measures in the wake of competition being suspended because of the global COVID-19 outbreak.
BLUES' SHUTDOWN REPORT CARD Weapons, downfall, more
As part of the decision – brought upon by an AFL directive for clubs to cut soft cap expenditure by $3 million in the next year – it also parted ways with the club's VFL coach Josh Fraser, who held dual roles with the Blues for the last five seasons.
Speaking during a two-hour members forum conducted on Facebook on Thursday, the club's CEO Cain Liddle said it would now likely appoint one of its development coaches to take the reins of a new VFL side upon the resumption of play to avoid a double-up in roles.
"Until the AFL clarifies what a second-tier competition looks like in the future, it's hard to confirm what a Carlton team would look like," Liddle said.
"Equally, with the mandated soft cap reduction, clubs will need to address how they resource any second-tier competition … likely looking to remove potential duplication of roles across the AFL and second-tier programs.
"At this point, if a second-tier season was to go ahead later this year, we would continue to lean on Northern Blues players to put a team on the park and (football boss) Brad Lloyd would make a call as to which of our development coaches would coach that team."
Carlton officially aligned with the then-named Northern Bullants in 2003, with the club's current senior coach David Teague beginning his coaching journey with a three-year spell at the helm of the VFL side between 2008 and 2010.
The decision to cut ties with the VFL program meant that the Northern Blues, which was first formed as the Preston Football Club, will now cease to exist after 138 years in competition.
All state league competitions are currently not slated to resume action until May 31 at the earliest.
