Bartlett has warned AFL chairman Richard Goyder and CEO Gillon McLachlan they are trapped on a "wheel of death" - an industrial relations term for negotiations that endured for months and potentially years with no evident resolution in sight.

The Bartlett proposal, first suggested at the meeting of club presidents and the commission in March, would create a circuit-breaker for collective bargaining agreement negotiations between the AFL and the players.

The AFL would shut out the players' union and go direct to the 800 or so players should no resolution be reached at a deadline set by both parties.

Fairfax Media understands the AFL's legal boss and key negotiator, Andrew Dillon, plans to explore the Bartlett suggestion and has spoken with the Melbourne chairman.

A former managing partner of industrial law firm Clayton Utz, Bartlett runs his own industrial law business and trains workplace bargaining teams.

The suggested reform, which he described to commissioners as a "democratic" solution, should definitely be considered for future negotiations if it could not be implemented this year, according to Bartlett, and would require a change to the AFL rules which already operate outside the Fair Work Act.

It is being looked at as clubs have become increasingly frustrated with the uncertainty of their balance sheets, player contract talks and list management as head office and players have failed to come to terms.

CBA negotiations between the AFL and the players have moved well into their second year, bypassing the threat of a pre-season strike, but still unresolved in terms of the players' bid for a percentage share of the game's total overall revenue of about 25 per cent over the next six years.

Bartlett's proposal, which he has also put before other commissioners, is in line with industrial reforms which led to the 2009 Australian Fair Work Act. His view, as explained to league bosses, would see a deadline of, for example, September 2017 set. Should no resolution be reached, a majority vote by players could put a new CBA in place.

The drawn-out negotiations have frustrated both parties, with the AFL last year continually delaying the release of its six-year cost projections to the AFLPA and then refusing to negotiate at all for a two-month period at the end of last year.

The league's most recent offer, which included a 20 per cent pay rise in the base total player payments for 2017, has taken 10 months. Taking into account the removal of the veterans' allowance in 2017, the AFL's offer has been put at closer to a 16 per cent increase in real terms.

The two parties are continuing to negotiate, but the players' view is that the subsequent annual TPP increases of 1 per cent a year is less than the CPI and will see the players worse off in terms of the game's revenue than they are now.

Geelong chief executive Brian Cook says the players should "jump" at the offer put forward just before Easter. The Cats boss told 3AW on Monday that he feared for the clubs and their operational concerns the longer the dispute dragged on.

"If it doesn't get done this year, that's really, really messy," he said. "I mean what do you do with the players who've played this year and been delisted? I mean what do we do - back payments and those sorts of things?"

Of the reported pay increase offer from the AFL of 20 per cent in 2017, with small increases estimated at 1 per cent each year thereafter, Cook added: "If that's the case, I reckon they should jump at that. I think that's an unbelievable deal. Who else gets offered over 26 per cent over five years of which you get 20 per cent in your first year?" Cook said.