A final release date for AFL Victoria’s Community Club Sustainability Program (CCSP) salary cap policy is yet to be confirmed, despite the release of a draft in July.

AFL Western District will set salary caps for the region’s leagues once the policy is finalised.

It’s the second major component of the CCSP, following the 2016 points cap introduction.

AFL Western District region general manager Lachy Patterson said, given how far clubs in the Hampden, Warrnambool and District and Mininera and District leagues were into their recruiting drives, a generous approach would be taken to the cap’s introduction.

“We have to be realistic in it, given that all our clubs are out recruiting,” he said.

“We will be using 2017 very much as an implementation year. It will be an educational year for clubs across the region.”

The initial national player transfer window opened on Tuesday, with Port Fairy the only Warrnambool region club to lodge a clearance at the time of writing this article, and will close at the end of the month.

It will then reopen for the traditional transfer period of February 1 to June 30.

Points caps for next season are expected to be finalised within the next two weeks.

Patterson said leagues’ base points allowances would remain the same as 2016, but any clubs wanting allowances would have to re-apply.