Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has expressed his frustration at the amount of football modern footballers have to play every calendar year.

The Argentine claims that his compatriot Diego Maradona is right when he says that decisions in football are made by people who have never touched the ball.

Pochettino has backed a radical restructuring of the yearly football calendar along the lines of major American sports.

He said: "The problem is that in football, the managers and players need to make the decisions about the competitions. But sometimes the decisions are always from the people who never play football.

"I agree with Diego Maradona when he complains about this: the people who take the decisions about football are people who never touch the football. And that is the problem.

"But it is difficult to change. Because in between business, football, sports, there are many things that happen. And as we always say, football is not an ordinary business.

"That said, in the NBA and the NFL, four months competition and then holiday. And they receive more money than our players. Come on – it's a business, true, but respect the people, the athletes. "Every four years you compete in the Olympic Games. In football, it's every three days 'Come on, give your best' and 'Give your best' and 'Give your best.'

"That's why it's important to organise the competition better in the future but sometimes you're speaking for the sake of it because who listens?"