MILAN, Nov 10: Italian League president Franco Carraro called on Wednesday for talks with the world's top football and Olympic officials in a bid to head-off a looming crisis over the Sydney Games, reports AFP. ’ A storm is brewing because the European Football Union .(UEFA) have pencilled in a string of Champions League and UEFA Cup matches for the period covered by the Olympic soccer tournament (Sept 13 - Oct 1).

European clubs fear that national Olympic coaches, who are entitled to select three 'over-23' players, will bring top stars such as Brazilian Ronaldo or Argentinian Gabriel Batistuta.

Carraro told the Gazzetta dello Sport that he was calling for a round table with officials from the International Olympic Committee, world soccer's ruling body. FIFA, and UEFA.

Carraro. who will seek the backing of Leagues across Europe at a meeting in Milan on November 22, made it clear he wants UEFA to back down over its calendar and for Sydney to become a soccer showpiece.

Commenting on the round-table. he said: "Everyone would be able to make suggestions and then, in the interests of football. we are bound to find a solution that we can put into practice.

'The Olympics must be respected as the fullest possible expression of sport on Earth." he said.

"Every self-respecting international soccer calendar has to take it into account... yet UEFA, by inserting three rounds of the Champions league and two of the UEFA Cup in that period, haven't taken the slightest notice."

Banging the drum for Italian clubs, he said: "Our Interest, and those of everyone in Europe, is to keep the national championships from being falsified, i.e, that teams should be able to field a team at full strength and not with a few important players unavailable due to the Olympics.

"A solution could be to bring the league season forward to mid-August and then suspend it for the duration of the Sydney Games."

But he added: "Our gesture would be of little use if UEFA do not do as much with the European cups."

FIFA president Sepp Blatter told the paper that his federation would he willing to join Carraro's round table.

But he recalled that introducing a unified soccer calendar around the world, precisely to avoid the growing problems of club/international fixture lists, has been one of FIFA's crusades.

And in an apparent message to UEFA, he said: "Competition between the Olympics, the Champions League and the clubs would be damaging for the entire movement that FIFA is responsible for."

UEFA secretary general Gerhard Aigner said the union was open to suggestions. But he seemed to pass the buck to the

big European clubs and their search for ever more lucrative matches.

"All we've done is faithfully respect the usual European club calendar." he told the paper. "If you want an intense degree of international activity, you have to establish priorities.

"And for European football, the Champions League is our flagship tournament, one that generates money for national federations, leagues and clubs, both large and small.

"By contrast, the Olympics is an event which almost invariably means financial losses for the major European federations taking part."

And harking back to talks with Leagues and clubs last year over the extension of the Champions League. Aigner said: "Our position was explicit, we were concerned about the calendar becoming too hectic.

"But people, and especially the big clubs, wouldn't listen. And by threatening to form a private Super League if we didn't agree, they obliged us to organise this excessive number of matches -- which now they are regretting after seeing the high price that has to be paid in their national championships."

Aigner said UEFA was open to solutions, but added: "The easiest one. the most sporting one and the one free of financial interests would be to have the Olympics without the over-23s: without the players who are sought by sponsors and who contrast with the purely sporting spirit of the Games."