Ricky Ponting says the upcoming negotiations with Cricket Australia will deal with a lot of agendas, apart from pay issues.

The Australian Cricketers' Association will shortly begin negotiations with Cricket Australia for a new MOU with the Australian players believed to be looking for not only higher wages but at the same time less work through a reduction in the amount of public and sponsorship promotions they are forced to make each season.

This claim comes after controversial all-rounder Andrew Symonds reportedly offered recently to cut his salary by to reduce his off-field workload as he grew tired of the constant media and sponsorship demands.

Players are contracted to take part in up to 22 sponsorship appearances for either Cricket Australia or their state associations a year, with no more than four a month.

Ponting said today that far from only being concerned with getting more money for less work as newspaper headlines suggested, the players were determined that their off-field commitments should not jeopardise the team's on-field performance.

"If you read the paper today (a pay increase) looks like it's the only (issue) but at the end of the day we know what the guidelines are, the players get a 25% share of whatever money comes into the game," he said.

"Every four years the same topic comes up whether it's player workload or money that the players are chasing."

Although Ponting acknowledged that promotional duties had probably decreased in the last four years, he argued the increasingly crowded fixture calendar made finding the time more difficult.

"The hard thing is managing those (CA commitments) and have those happening at the right time to give you the best chance to prepare for games of cricket," he said.

"If you have reasonable breaks (between) games it's okay but it's hard to fit in appearances when you have back-to-back games because there simply isn't the time between games and that is often when state associations and sponsors want you to do appearances."

For example Australia's upcoming three-Test series against South Africa will be crammed into just a three-week period.

Ponting said such were the growing demands of players that he doubted any Australian player would be able to play in every Test, one-day international and Twenty20 match confronting the team over the next 18 months.

"That (the crowded playing calendar) has been one thing that we have been trying to deal with for last four or five years and how we manage that as best we possibly can for the best outcomes for the team and for Cricket Australia is the great challenge that lies ahead," he said.