A meeting will be held this Sunday, with the league board to gauge the opinions of member clubs on the idea.
The league split for the first time in 2009, with North West and South East leagues formed.
The competition remained in that format until the 2018 season, when the divisions merged after the league decided not to affiliate with AFL Goulburn Murray, and four clubs decided to leave the league as a result.
The league has remained as a merged competition since, with the current version of the PDFNL containing 15 sides.
But now conversations around splitting the league have started again in earnest, although the desire to split the competition has never really gone away.
“(In 2018) some clubs opted to go and remain affiliated, which was respected, but it meant we had to fall back as one competition,” Picola and District Football Netball League manager of operations Shane Railton said.
“There’s continued to be some interest thereafter about the potential of splitting.
“There was some discussion last year and there continues to be some ongoing discussion.”
Two former North West division club representatives have indicated they favour a return to a split league.
“We're open to the idea,” Picola United president Clinton Barnes said.
“There's a chance to go back to a similar format that it was a few years ago, and we feel that suited us but we’re still yet to sit down formally as a committee and make a decision either way.”
The move was also supported by Picola United’s current coach, Rhys Woodland.
“We're definitely in favour of splitting,” he said.
“I don't think it's a good idea (to be merged). You might only play everyone once, a couple of teams twice, how (do) you keep that even.
“You might place someone in round two, and you might not see them until potentially grand final day or a preliminary final.
”It's a bit better when it's a tighter group, you know your opposition a lot more, you can have a few more rivalries.
“I've grown up in the HD(FNL) league (and) having nine in that league is the perfect number I believe, so then you play everyone twice.
“You get the 16 games, one home, one away, it's as even as you can possibly get it.That would be the way I would be leaning.”
Mathoura co-coach Tim McCormick indicated that he would personally also favour a split league.
“I think for sides like Mathoura, Yarroweyah and Blighty, the only way for survival is to split, that's my personal opinion as a senior coach,” he said.
“We've got to be realistic. We find it hard to compete with the sides that are located reasonably close to Shepparton, the drawing power they have.
“So, if we want to look at challenging for a premiership at all, I think we've got to be in a competition similar to us in location and town size and things like that.
“Otherwise, you're going to be competitive, but you’re probably never going to taste the ultimate success.”
Mathoura was meeting last night to discuss the club's stance on a split.
It is understood similar meetings have been held by the Rovers and Blighty, although the outcomes were not known at the time of going to print yesterday.
If the league was to decide to split once again, Railton indicated there could be as many as a dozen outside clubs waiting in the wings with a mind to join one of the newly created divisions.
“There's a significant amount of interest, and I would say an overwhelming amount of interest,” he said.
“I’ve been involved with the league when other clubs have come back in and the level of interest shown from the clubs so far exceeds that in the past.
“I’d expect if we were to split, then we potentially could end up with in excess of 20 clubs.”
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