It's hard to believe but professional football in Victoria nearly collapsed in 1986.

With seven clubs on their financial knees - Fitzroy, Geelong, Footscray, Collingwood, Melbourne, North Melbourne and Richmond - the league was in dire straits.

Thirty years on, never-before-seen documents show just how close the corporate regulator came to shutting down professional football in this state.

Gordon Lewis had been commissioner for corporate affairs for only a couple of months when he penned an ultimatum to VFL commissioners.

"Of the 11 Victorian Club companies it appears that seven of them are technically insolvent. These clubs are Fitzroy, Geelong, Footscray, Collingwood, Melbourne, North Melbourne and Richmond," he wrote on August 8, 1986.

In the explosive letter, Mr Lewis said he had met with the league's finance director and "during the course of that discussion it was represented to me that Fitzroy, North Melbourne, St Kilda and Melbourne clubs would seek to merge with either one another or some other club companies".

"Please advise me within seven days what steps the Victorian Football League or its Club Company members propose to take to remedy the situation.

"Unless your response to me contains some viable proposals to remedy the present situation, it is my intention to carry out my statutory obligations," he wrote.

This week, Lewis, who went on to become a County Court judge, told Fairfax Media he is not sure why he didn't shut the competition down.

"Was it just lack of character? I didn't want to be the man remembered as stopping the [football] season one month before the grand final?"

Graeme Samuel, then a VFL commissioner, said it was dark days for footy.

"The total competition had net assets of about $4 million including Waverley Park – half of the clubs were bankrupt on any analysis," he said.

Ross Oakley was brought in as chief executive of the VFL to fix the mess.

Mr Oakley said the clubs "had some balance sheets that were really pretty disastrous ... it was very close to disappearing as a competition".

"I think there would have always been some form of Australian football but not in the form that was in and not a VFL the way it was," Mr Oakley said.

Victorian fans can thank Brisbane and West Coast - which joined the competition in 1987 - for effectively saving the league.

Asked why he did not close the league down, Judge Lewis said the league convinced him that the licence revenue from the new teams would prop up the competition.

Peter Cohen, who was a policy officer with the sports department at the time, said the state government had to be convinced the VFL had to go national to survive.

"Up until then the government's position was that it not only preferred that the VFL remain a state-based competition but that it was prepared to legislate to ensure it. Our advice was that the VFL would not survive like that," he said.

There were other changes that boosted the VFL coffers Mr Samuel said. Television rights that had gone to Channel Seven every year were put out to market and supporters rallied whenever clubs rattled the cans.

A public lottery to support the VFL was also considered and there was even a view if the VFL could just get Richmond to win more games the crowds would come back.

John Cain had only been premier for six weeks when the VFL came looking for money.

They wanted to make Waverley Victoria's major football stadium, move the grand final there and for the government to build a new railway line to the stadium.

"We told them in no uncertain terms that would not be the government's position," he said.

He said some clubs were so broke at the time they weren't even paying their payroll tax.

"So I just made it pretty clear that you pay your payroll tax and you'll be good corporate citizens and you are not taking the game anywhere away from the MCG," he said.