The club's recent appeal for new players failed to attract the numbers required and Federal may only be able to field reserves in 2022.

But whether the league would allow them to operate without seniors is another matter, leaving a great deal of uncertainty around the club's immediate future.

No decision has been taken yet but officials are set for crunch talks on Tuesday night.

"I'd love to keep the Federal footy-netball club going," co-president Craig Sheather said.

"I've been there all my life, I've been president for five years and I've seen a bit of a decline; a couple of years without footy doesn't help.

"I'd love to keep the Federal football club going but I'd love to keep sport going in the Upper Murray even more.

"We all need to have a bit of a sit-down and decide which way this is going to go for our juniors.

"I think we've got to get sport for our juniors and seniors can just fall into line behind them.

"That's probably back-to-front to most people's thinking but I just think that if the youth's not coming through, it puts the nail in our coffin a bit quicker."

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Federal, premiers in 2016, reached the grand final in 2018 but didn't win a game last year.

"The bulk of our seconds players still come from Albury and without them, we would have been very close to going into recess," Sheather said.

"We've ended up with three teams of senior netball, which we had to dig deep for.

"We have a lot of under-11 footballers and a lot of under-11 and under-15 netballers so we've got to try to keep going for those kids, to give them a game on a Saturday.

"But people's attitudes have changed towards football and it's showing across all leagues,"

"The league doesn't have under-14s so there's no pathway for kids and a lot have headed to Tallangatta.

"We had real good under-16s a few years ago but they were playing in nine-a-side teams against kids who were 11 and 12.

"They wanted to leave to play good football and we certainly didn't stop them.

"Those kids have now filtered through to the Ovens and Murray as pretty good footballers.

"It's a real hard one. We've always had the policy that our juniors are everything and if we can't supply them with a good game of football, we do not hesitate in saying 'you go and find yourself a good game of football.'

"It's probably our undoing to a certain extent but for those kids, individually, it's been absolutely great."

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