BURNLEY are championing a new competition next season to cover blank dates in the domestic calendar.

Clarets chairman Barry Kilby sparked debate among Football League's top brass after failing in a bid to force all First Division sides to play, rather than postpone games through international call-ups.

At a meeting of all chairmen this week, Kilby's initial proposal was thrown out by other clubs having a handful of players capped by their country, whose absence would weaken their hand if forced to play.

Kilby's back-up proposal is that ALL First Division sides now have a blank weekend on international dates.

And that has led to suggestions of an experimental tournament evolving to offset a loss of income and allow for rules such as offsides to be scrapped.

Kilby said: "There are three Saturdays next season set aside for World Cup qualifiers and we have highlighted the problem that, if you are unlucky, you could have three home games on those dates all postponed and lose a massive amount of income.

"When our game with Reading was postponed last October, their third player was a Jamaican U21 Olympic squad member, and through rearranging that game on a midweek night we ended up losing £30,000.

"There are very few, full blown international players in this league and I strongly

feel we should all play.

"One of the unique things we, as a league have, is real football on a Saturday afternoon. "We have almost an unspoken contract to the fans to play then whenever possible and so they can plan accordingly.

"Also, when the Premiership is not playing it is a great showcase for us.

"However, our proposal was defeated because, as you might expect, the likes of West Brom and Ipswich have a lot of U21 players and it's in their interests to call games off.

"We came up with a different alternative to call off every game and that has now gone to the Fixtures Committee to determine whether we can keep these Saturdays with no games designated.

"That would at least give teams the opportunity to play those games when it suits them - maybe even starting the season a week earlier to play on a warmer Saturday."

Kilby, whose suggestion fuelled further discussion, added: "It has now been suggested that we might want to hold a new competition on these free Saturdays, similar to cricket's 'Twenty20'.

"That at least would bring in revenue and we could maybe even experiment with things like having no offsides."

Kilby, who expects to hear a final decision next month, said: "I never expected to win the appeal that we all play, but at least we have sparked a debate and things are being given some thought, so I am reasonable happy with that."