The bye weekend ahead of this year's finals series will be bookended by the Virgin Australia AFL All Australian Awards and the NAB AFL Rising Star announcement.

The All Australian ceremony was held on the Tuesday before the preliminary final weekend in 2015, but it has been brought forward to Thursday, September 1 this year to effectively kick off the finals festivities.

The Rising Star award retains its place on the Tuesday before the first week of finals (September 6).

Speaking at a launch on Tuesday to announce the partnership between the AFL and Disability Sport Australia to develop wheelchair Australian football, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said multiple events were planned around the bye weekend.

"(There will be a) celebration of football. We're bullish about what's going to be able to be done in that week," McLachlan said.

"Very confident those clubs that are in the finals will be able to have open days.

"We've got the All Australian and NAB Rising Star, so there's a lot of different things going on."

While the AFL has big plans for this year's pre-finals bye weekend, McLachlan said the AFL had not yet decided when next season's byes would occur.

"We haven't made a definitive call on that. We'll see how we go this year with the configuration that we have. We'll look at that," McLachlan said.

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The week off before finals was introduced this year, in part, to avoid top-eight clubs resting a large number of players for final-round matches. Last year, North Melbourne made nine changes against Richmond, while Fremantle left half its team at home for a clash against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

AFLPA player relations manager Brett Murphy expressed his concern about the timing of the bye weeks in a statement on Tuesday.

"While we appreciate that the details are not yet finalised, we are concerned that the proposed scheduling framework does not at this point contemplate the return of a second in-season bye," Murphy said.

"The players overwhelmingly support the return of a second in-season bye, and believe this is a critical player welfare issue given the demands of the modern game.

"As the AFL has itself noted the importance of player welfare in devising the fixture, we remain hopeful that this important issue can be addressed for the 2017 season."