The AFL's failure to yet provide the players' union with a clear financial vision for the next six years continues to cause tension between the two parties as the players launch their push for a significant pay increase.

Paul Marsh, the chief executive of the AFL Players' Association, said he was disappointed to be still waiting on the game's investment model based on the division of the $2.5 billion  of broadcast rights money as his body sought to open collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

"It's frustrating," Marsh told Fairfax Media. "We've asked the AFL some time ago to give us their projections for the future and present their vision of where the game is going. We were hoping to have a clearer vision well before now."

With Marsh intractable on the players' push for a set percentage of competition revenue and at least two clubs officially preparing for a worst-case-scenario strike as part of their risk management strategy, AFL bosses have stated their ambition to settle the carve-up simultaneously with clubs, players, game development and other key investments.

AFL chief Gillon McLachlan told club chiefs in February that the game had been "lazy" during its most recent CBA negotiation which punctuated the 2011 season. This followed a hastily completed negotiation of that agreement late in the year which saw clubs forced to cover a number of late costings emerging in the final weeks of the talks.

Interestingly it was McLachlan's predecessor Andrew Demetriou who, in 2011, accused the players' union of being "lazy" in pushing for a set percentage of the game's revenue.

"We think it's a now-or-never issue," said Marsh, of the push for a percentage of revenue estimated at about 25 per cent. The AFLPA led by Marsh has held only preliminary talks with the AFL and requested the game's predicted future costings over  summer. The union anticipated a completed financial forecast by March.

However league finance chief Ray Gunston said he had forwarded to the players the most clear financial picture currently available.

"I can't give them what I don't have," retorted Gunston, "and what I do have I have given them. There's a lot of elements to the work we are doing and that work continues to be refined. The investment model is not an exercise done quickly or taken lightly."

Gunston said he had met the AFLPA's finance general manager John Hogan last week and provided as much detail as available based on current assumptions.

With McLachlan to head the CBA talks on the AFL's behalf, flanked by Gunston, Mark Evans and Andrew Dillon, Marsh said he had hoped by now that the two parties would have set the parameters of the negotiations. Along with senior AFLPA executives, Marsh said he planned to introduce senior players into the negotiations when required.

No timeline has been set for the talks, which McLachlan has indicated he had hoped to complete well before the end of the season and potentially at the midway point.

More than one key player manager, including Craig Kelly, had called unsuccessfully for the strike option to be taken off the table. That call came at a meeting last month between the AFLPA and player agents that  left no parties in doubt  Marsh and his team remained determined there would be no  back down in the  push for a set portion of competition revenue.