The stadium hosted rock band AC/DC in February - clashing with the pre-season competition - and the series of concerts is copping most of the blame for the current issues with the turf.
But having recently met with Etihad Stadium management, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou is confident an agreement about limiting the number of post-Christmas events at the venue can be reached.
“I think they are open to that suggestion,” he said.
“I think they acknowledge that the preparation for this year’s football was hindered by a number of events that happened before the season.
“They’ve indicated to us that they know, going forward, that they’d like the surface to be playing as it did last year and the year before and the year before that.
“To [achieve] that you need to have a much clearer run before the season and not have as many events, particularly events that go onto the surface.”
Demetriou said any claims that the League has reacted slowly to the condition of the turf at Etihad Stadium were wide of the mark.
“We’ve said all along that there is an issue, that’s why we formed a working party, set up by (football operations manager) Adrian Anderson, which has been in place for a number of weeks now,” he said.
“The working party has got the AFL Players' Association on it, it’s got turf experts, and it’s got people from the stadium.
“We’ve never said the stadium was perfect, we’ve always said it needed some work.”
Demetriou added that he expected the turf to be in much better condition when Essendon hosts St Kilda on Friday, in the opening game of round 18.
He also said the AFL was not planning on relocating Etihad Stadium games to other venues.
“We’ve moved games before, if we’ve found a surface to be unsafe, [but] there’s no suggestion that this surface is unsafe,” he said.
“I think the surface will play well for the rest of the year.
“It won’t be where we would like it, compared to the MCG, but I think the works that are going on at the moment will provide a good surface for football to be played on.”
A Bledisloe Cup rugby union international between Australia and New Zealand will be played at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.
But Demetriou said he was confident the surface would be in an acceptable condition when the Western Bulldogs host North Melbourne on Sunday.
“They had those before and we’ve always worked with the stadium to leave the venue open to major events,” he said.
