BURNLEY are throwing their weight behind plans to revolutionise the traditional end-of-season play-offs.

Football League chairmen meet later this week to discuss a radical overhaul that could see the team finishing eighth promoted to the Premiership next season.

The Clarets have finished an agonising seventh in two of the last three first division campaigns.

And unsurprisingly, Clarets supremo Barry Kilby has revealed he will be first in the queue to offer his support to the controversial plan.

Kilby said: "There is every chance this season the play-offs will go down to eighth and that is one of the things we are voting on and I am supporting.

"It would keep the season alive for so many clubs -and let's not forget we are in the entertainment business.

"In the old days, clubs that weren't at the top had nothing to play for from January onwards, but now fans simply won't accept that.

"I know a lot of people feel there shouldn't even be play-offs and that the third team should be promoted.

"If you want it that way, then fine - that's how it is. But once you accept the principle that we are having play-offs for that third place to add excitement to the end of the season and generate more revenue, I think it's quite a good scheme being proposed."

The new proposals - the brainchild of Crystal Palace chief executive Phil Alexander - would see the seventh and eighth placed first division teams at the end of the normal 46-game season travel to those finishing fifth and sixth respectively.

The two winners of the one-legged ties would then face the third and fourth placed sides over another 90-minutes, with the latter two, higher placed teams holding home advantage.

Those games would then dictate who travels to the Millennium Stadium for the right to play top flight football.

Kilby, who believes the scheme will be rubber-stamped this Thursday and then implemented in time for next season, argued: "It is heavily weighted in terms of the top teams.

"The argument is that if you finish eighth, you don't deserve to be in the Premier League, but even so, you would still have to win two away games on a one-off basis.

"If you look, the history of teams finishing third and being promoted is extremely poor, as has happened again this season with Sheffield United."

"This way, all they have to do is win one game to reach the final. It's not 100 per cent against.

" I have been speaking to other chairmen and I feel that is the idea that will be accepted by the general consensus."

Among the other issues on the agenda is a move to deduct points for clubs going into administration.

But Kilby revealed he is against imposing such Draconian measures for genuine cases of hardship.

He explained: "I'm a bit wary of that, because it's not always that easy. Leicester were able to get a fabulous deal from their creditors last season, and there are one or two that have abused the system, but not that many.

"There are genuine clubs who fall into difficulties, and to start knocking them 12 points, when they are fighting to survive, would be wrong."