Australian Rugby League boss Geoff Carr has warned any attempt to boycott the end-of-season Four Nations tournament could not be done legally.

Carr says club agreements and player contracts bind both to representative duties.

His comments come after an unsourced report suggested an NRL club-instigated boycott of the international tournament could come about because of frustration over the slowness of moves towards an independent commission.

"Under the club agreement, they're required to (release players) and under the players' contracts they're required to play so it's not possible legally," Carr told AAP from Singapore.

The ARL manages the tournament, which will feature Australia, New Zealand, England and Papua New Guinea.

Carr said clubs would sacrifice revenue if a boycott went ahead because dollars generated by the Four Nations indirectly went back to them as NRL grants.

"The money out of the Four Nations that we generate doesn't go to the ARL, it goes into the NRL partnership and that helps the clubs," Carr said.

"If the clubs want to have a reduction in their grant because there's not enough money to pay it, that's fine.

"It generates revenue for the game which allows the club grants to be there."

The ARL chief executive said he had heard nothing about a boycott.

"No one has spoken to me about any of this," Carr said.

"I haven't spoken to anyone from clubland and I'm quite certain that if they were serious about that and they understood where the revenues were going they would talk to me first."

He said progress was continuing on the establishment of a commission to replace the ARL/News structure by November.

"We've continued to meet with News," he said.

"If they're going to take any action to help move this commission along, none of this is productive one way or the other because revenues to the game are lost and they're in breach of their club agreements."

Carr will attend a meeting of NRL club CEOs on Friday but is not expecting any heat over the commission, despite the QRL's opposition to the model which has been proposed.

"We've continued to talk with News and we continue to talk with everybody and if clubs wanted to talk to me about anything at all they're quite welcome to and they haven't," he said.

Club chief executives contacted by AAP on Tuesday night did not return calls.

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