The league recently approached clubs with a proposal to consider in preference to organising their own pre-season matches.

League general manager Sean Barrett said clubs had an open mind towards the proposal.

However, clubs having different opinions on the format of the pre-season competition proved to be the biggest stumbling block.

"We went through a process of presenting a few different concepts to clubs," Barrett said.

"Unfortunately we couldn't get the majority of the clubs to all agree to the one format.

"Given the timeframe and that clubs need to have dates for pre-season matches locked in, we decided to shelve the proposal for now.

"But we are still keen to work with the clubs and come up with a concept that is viable and suitable."

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Barrett said most clubs have a different individual approach towards the pre-season which makes it difficult to accommodate specific requirements.

"Clubs had different views and goals on what they want to achieve over the pre-season and as a league we understand that," he said.

"Some of the biggest issues included if all three football grades are involved, length of quarters, size of squads, when the competition was going to be held and who plays who.

"They were just some of the challenges that we were faced with.

"So we decided it wasn't feasible to organise and wanted to give clubs sufficient time to make their own plans prior to the 2021 season.

"The positive from a league perspective was we were really happy with the engagement from clubs.

"If it does eventuate we have to ensure that it suits the majority of clubs and there was a lot of positive feedback."

Barrett conceded it was a lost opportunity to generate early interest in the competition and give the football starved public an early opportunity to watch an O&M match for the first time in 18 months.

"There will still be pre-season matches," he said.

"We are excited by what lies ahead with the competition widely considered the most even for quite some time."