GAELIC Players Association chief Tom Parsons isn't convinced that the window available for next year's new football Championship will be large enough.
The GAA will move to a new format that includes a series of round robin games immediately after the provincial competitions, reducing the field for the All-Ireland knock-out stages.
The All-Ireland decider has been pushed back by a week to July 30 while scrapping National League finals, to free up more badly needed space, was considered before being ruled out.
Speaking at the launch of the GPA's Annual Report 2021, chief executive officer Parsons said he believes more space is still required and suggested culling the pre-season competitions.
"Next year is different, particularly for the football structure," said former Mayo midfielder Parsons.
"We have increased games with very little room for preparation. So, for me, personally, I think there are unknowns in can we deliver the football structure in this window?
"My opinion is that we need to remove the pre-season competitions. I think if we could remove them and start the National Leagues a week earlier it would give another week's break. Because there are very few break periods in the season next year to deliver this new structure.
"Ultimately we won't be able to answer the question about next year until the end of the season when we do another review."
Parsons is also looking forward to assessing data collected from a review of the current club season, the first since the split season was introduced.
According to the GPA, initial findings suggested that there was support amongst inter-county members with 87 per cent stating in July that they 'had either a positive or very positive experience' of the model.
The GPA stated that, 'since then, some red flags have been raised about the training load and length of the season'.
"With the traditional finish in September as an inter-county player you scramble from your inter-county into your club season," said Parsons.
"You don't ramp down, you scramble into it and you play your championship with your club and then you get your break.
"Whereas this has been a very dynamic season in terms of ramping up, ramping down, and then re-ramping up again for the 2023 inter-county season. I've seen some data, that we need to verify, that the training load of a club season is half of that of the inter-county season.
"It's something like 50,000 kms a month in a club season, and over 110,000 a month in the inter-county season. So it will be interesting to see how players readapt, being finished the inter-county season in July, then ramping up again and being ready to go for pre-season competitions in January.
"It's a challenge to get everything right in year one of the split season so there will definitely be a bedding in period. But we have to do a full 360 review at end of year. We wouldn't be stating our position until we do that."
Inter-county training is permitted again from November 24. Parsons said the GPA settled on this date as they believe six weeks of pre-season is required before competitive games.
He said that there will be a 'joint responsibility' on all stakeholders, including players, to ensure that the November 24 agreement isn't breached.
The GPA also highlighted a 61 per cent increase in the number of county players accessing their counselling services. Concerning figures of one in four inter-county players - and one in three inter-county footballers from Tier 1 teams - being subjected to online abuse were also revealed.
