BURNLEY chairman Barry Kilby has thrown his weight behind plans to revolutionise the play-off system this summer.

Under the new proposals, passed at a quarterly meeting of all Football League chairmen on Thursday, the Clarets would have a better chance of extending their season as teams finishing as low as EIGHTH would be involved in the end-of-season lottery.

League chairman Brian Mawhinney still has to convince Premier League chiefs, who last year rejected a similar plan to change the present four club system.

But Kilby, who expects League chairmen to formally pass the resolution at June's AGM in Portugal, is urging top flight clubs to adopt the change in time for next season or face accusations of hypocricy.

He said: "Last year the measure was rejected by the Premier League, who still have to agree to the change.

"Their argument could be that the eighth placed team can make it into the Premiership, yet they seem to think it is right for the fourth placed Premiership team to take part in the Champions League. It is laughable.

"This new system would maximise the season for more clubs and that surely can only be a good thing, so I strongly support it."

The new proposals would scrap two-legged play-off ties, replacing them with one-off games. The two teams finishing third and fourth would go straight into the semi-finals to met the winners of fifth v eighth and sixth v seventh.

Teams finishing higher in the regular season have home advantage in both rounds, with the winners joining the automatically promoted teams in a higher division.

Kilby added: "Home advantage becomes a big thing and this way, the play offs are weighted so that that if you finish third or fourth, you have a better chance of winning because you play one less game.

"Also, there is no overall increase in the number of games and I'm sure fans would welcome the cup tie atmosphere this system would generate."

Meanwhile, a second resolution passed at this week's Football League meeting could hand clubs a financial lifeline by scrapping payments to players' agents.

Chairmen agreed that in future, all fees to players' representatives should come out of the pockets of the players themselves.

A recent Football League report revealed that Burnley paid £163,900 to agents in the first six months of the 2005/06 season. In the previous year that amount was £211,000.

Kilby said: "Clubs must stand the hidden costs of dealing with players' representatives, but this new measure means we will no longer be able to pay them.

"It is ludicrous that we have to pay for a person who represents a player and hopefully this will redress the balance."