AFL footballers have been so worn down by the demands of today's elite competition that many used an anonymous survey to report their sense of dread before resuming this season.

Filming of training is adding to the sense of burden on top of players' already acute consciousness that their every move is being recorded and analysed by someone.

The majority of the AFL's 800-odd footballers have confided in the AFL Players Association that they are not enjoying their jobs.

Nine months into his new CEO post, and in his first in-depth interview, Paul Marsh has expanded publicly for the first time on his deep concern that players in the richest and most popular sport in Australia are distinctly "jaded".

"I don't raise this to start trouble," Marsh told Fairfax Media. "It's just that it concerns me and I've come from a sport where I reckon the athletes are enjoying what they're doing a hell of a lot more than what I'm seeing in AFL."

Taking a key football role as something of an AFL outsider – Marsh worked briefly at Port Adelaide before becoming CEO of the Australian Cricketers' Association and chair of the Australian Athletes' Alliance – he has been struck by an industry he has described as "not quite right". AFL players have regularly pulled Marsh aside to underline their strains directly. He is genuinely troubled by the possible mental health ramifications while many issues remain unaddressed and says the entire AFL industry must listen and act.

The troubling picture crystalised for Marsh at a meeting of the AFLPA's delegates and board – involving perhaps 40 leading, current AFL players – last November. After replacing Matt Finnis as permanent CEO of the AFLPA, Marsh had been in the job three months. Footballers reported being physically pushed to the brink – possibly for no good reason other than a contagious obsession of the elite competition's 18 clubs with improving fitness any which way – and that demands generally are too onerous.

Players, Marsh said, are "filthy" about losing the second bye this season.

"I see a playing group that's quite jaded and that's a concern to me," Marsh said. "I just don't think the majority are enjoying playing the game."

More broadly, Marsh has noticed that the AFL industry is burning out employees in all areas of the game. Fairfax Media reported last year sensitive results of an AFL-wide survey of senior coaches where the distinct theme of feedback was that the job can be highly detrimental to their mental and physical health. Coaches reported paranoia, sleeplessness, nausea and, in an extreme case, a sense of not wanting to be seen in public due to a sense of work-related burden.

"And it's interesting, there are others who have come into this industry, with other sport experience who have said to me: this is not quite right," Marsh said. The stress issue was a stronger theme in player feedback than the matter of player payments. "I've asked some of the senior coaches: if you started pre-season training later, let's say January 1, would you be any less fit at the start of the season? Some of them have said 'no, we'd be fine'. Others have a completely different view. I'm no expert on sports science, but I'm convinced it's a follow-the-leader mentality."