CARLTON is strongly against the AFL Players' Association push to reduce free agency eligibility criteria from eight to six years. 

Blues CEO Steven Trigg, who sat on the committee that developed the free agency model that began in 2012, said the system has not been in place long enough for such a significant change to take place.

He told Melbourne radio station SEN on Wednesday any change in the model should not occur in the short-term. 

"The proposition of reducing it through to six years is completely unacceptable at the moment because players do, by and large, get where they need to go," Trigg said.

"We're only a few years into free agency and we're looking at playing with it. This club would say no."

Trigg's stance refutes the Players' Association claim that reducing the eligibility criteria would make clubs near the bottom of the ladder more attractive to free agents because they would still be at the club when success arrived. 

This, the AFLPA argued, would therefore assist clubs to rebuild more quickly.

Going by Trigg's comments, Carlton does not appear to accept that logic. 

Blues coach Mick Malthouse, a long-time believer that free agency would have a negative impact on the competition, said after the team's round two loss to West Coast that the club was not attractive to free agents because they were not an obvious premiership contender. 

The Blues have only recruited one restricted free agent – former Collingwood player Dale Thomas – since free agency began. They also picked up Matthew Dick from the Sydney Swans as a delisted free agent.

They have however lost Eddie Betts to Adelaide and Jarrad Waite to North Melbourne, while delisted players Jeremy Laidler and Mitch Robinson joined the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions respectively as delisted free agents. 

The AFL and the AFLPA expect to review free agency in the next 12 months as part of discussions ahead of the next collective bargaining agreement that is due to begin in 2017.