The Footscray Football Club will be back on the field next season. As part of a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with Victoria University, the Western Bulldogs will officially announce on Friday that their new stand-alone VFL team will embrace the club's original name.

The overwhelming majority of the club's 3000 members who took part in a vote chose the Footscray name ahead of the Western Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs were called Footscray from joining the VFL in 1925 until David Smorgon took over as president of the AFL club in late 1996 and decided to change the name to build the club's appeal through the western region.

There is no intention to revert the AFL team name to Footscray.