BURNLEY chairman Barry Kilby has taken an angry swipe at the Premier League after they blocked plans to change the play-off system in the Championship.

Kilby had given his full backing to a proposal put forward by the Football League, which would have seen the play-offs extended to incorporate six teams from next season.

Under those plans, any club finishing inside the top eight would have stood a chance of gaining a dream ticket to the Premiership.

But Premier League chiefs have advised' their Football League counterparts to drop the proposals as they don't want a situation where the club finishing eighth in the Championship gets promoted to the top flight.

Kilby said: "The Football League have been advised by the Premier League not to pursue the changes to the play off system.

"Clearly someone at the Premier League has an agenda on this but I really don't see their problem.

"They don't seem to want this implemented in case the team finishing eighth earns promotion to the Premiership. Yet the team finishing fourth can still qualify for the Champions League and that is okay.

"Unlike the current system, this proposal is devised to give the team finishing third the best possible chance of promotion, whereas at present they have an abysmal record of winning the play offs."

Under the Football League's proposal, the play-offs would have included a quarter final next season, which would have seen eighth play sixth, and seventh play fifth in one-off ties.

The winners of those ties would then play the teams who originally finished third and fourth in the league in the semi-finals, with the third and fourth placed teams having home advantage.

The two winning semi-finalists would then meet in the final for a place in the Premiership.

Kilby believes the new system would have been fairer as the highest placed teams gets home advantage, and there would also be no additional games to the current system.

Although the Premier League have blocked the proposals for now, Kilby insists the Football League have not abandoned all hope of changing the present system.

The Burnley chief added: "Like many chairmen in the Football League I am a strong supporter of the plan because we are in the entertainment industry and should be doing all we can to raise excitement.

"And even though we've been told we should not have a vote at the AGM in June, I suspect we will look to take this further."