AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson says there is no guarantee that the league will eventually introduce free agency.

The league has announced a raft of minor alterations to its draft and trade rules, which will come into place for this year's national draft.

The AFL Players Association has been pushing strongly for the introduction of a limited form of free agency.

The league will continue discussions with the AFLPA with a view to reaching an agreement by the end of the year.

But Anderson said that did not mean that free agency would necessarily be introduced.

"There is no commitment that free agency will be introduced, we have committed to discussing free agency further," Anderson said.

He said the AFL wanted to see how the changes it was introducing for the upcoming draft and trade period would affect player movement before considering any further changes to the system.

"It won't be resolved at least until after this year's draft," Anderson of the free agency issues.

"It's important that we examine the changes that have been bought in for this year's draft."

Anderson said one of the changes that he expected to have a significant effect was to allow players who were not contracted to their clubs by October 31, to nominate for that year's national draft which takes place in November.

Previously players in that situation had to wait until the later pre-season draft, but Anderson said the new system would give them much more scope for switching clubs.

He said the AFL's greatest fear about free agency was that it would undermine the evenness of the competition, which he said had been a hallmark of the AFL since the introduction of the salary cap, draft and trading system.

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