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Revealed: Why 2019-20 Fantasy Premier League champion was disqualified

Fantasy football manager Aleksandar Antonov was disqualified from the 2019-20 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) after comments made between friends on Facebook Messenger.

The Premier League were alerted to Antonov's comments, which he says were "taken out of context", and decided to strip the Bulgarian of his title, citing a "breach of terms".

Antonov finished top of the worldwide leaderboard, beating around 7.6million users across 38 gameweeks, but was removed from the game two weeks after the conclusion to the 2019-20 campaign.

"Somehow, and in some way, things that I said in a private Facebook messenger chat with five of my friends found its way to the EPL (English Premier League)," Antonov said in a video uploaded to his YouTube channel on Tuesday.

"In response the EPL decided to exercise their right and remove me as the winner and to annul my points for the season.

"To clarify, what we write in our chats is football banter. And for sure it's not something different generally from football banter chats...

"The reason for my disqualification is a moment of frustration with a player put into words, written between friends - it was never meant to offend any footballer on any basis.

"I was disqualified from the season because something was taken out of context to a large extent, from a small Bulgarian private chat by a person that certainly doesn't wish me well in life and made me look like something I'm not to the EPL."

Josh Bull, who originally came second with 2,557 points to Mr Antonov's 2,575, received an email from the Premier League on Tuesday morning telling him the news.

"It still hasn't really sunk in, I thought it was all over a few weeks ago," the 29-year-old told the PA news agency.

"It feels great to have won. I wasn't expecting to get second and definitely wasn't expecting to get first after the season had finished.

"I don't have a clue what's happened, I don't know anything beyond what the Premier League have announced on Twitter.

"On the one hand, I hope he wasn't disqualified for something silly as at the end of the day he scored more points than me - on the other I don't really want him to be disqualified for something serious either because that would mean something serious is happening."

Mr Bull, an Ipswich fan who now lives in Oxford, is the winner of FPL's top prize, which includes a seven-night holiday and VIP hospitality tickets to two Premier League matches.

"In itself that's a surreal thing at the moment as we don't know yet if there will be any crowds there or whether I'll actually be able to go to those games or not," Mr Bull said.

"I think the most useful prize will be the fantasy football stress ball - that could be quite handy."

Mr Bull credited his success this season to putting faith in Leicester players, including the league's top goalscorer Jamie Vardy, early on.

"Arguably I kept a bit of faith in Leicester for too long and kept them longer than I should have done," he said.

Additional reporting by PA

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Fantasy Premier League champion stripped of title after 'rule breach'