Chelsea Should Lose The Title — Pochettino Makes Explosive 2016/17 Premier League Demand

Former Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino has called for Tottenham Hotspur to be retrospectively awarded the 2016/17 Premier League title following Chelsea’s punishment for historical breaches of football regulations.

Chelsea were fined £10 million by the Football Association and handed a suspended two-window transfer ban after being found to have committed multiple historical rule violations linked to their transfer dealings during the Roman Abramovich era. The Premier League had also previously fined the club £10.75 million over breaches relating to unlicensed agents and attempts to conceal aspects of certain transfers between 2009 and 2022.

According to Bush Radio Academy, several transactions involving players including Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic were among those identified in the investigations. Those players played significant roles in Chelsea’s title-winning campaign under manager Antonio Conte.

Tottenham, managed by Pochettino at the time, finished second in the Premier League that season, seven points behind Chelsea. Pochettino now believes Spurs should have been declared champions if the breaches gave Chelsea an unfair competitive advantage.

“We should win one Premier League; we should have been awarded it,” Pochettino said. “If that [Chelsea’s rule-breaking] was true, then we deserve to be champions that year, for sure. They were punished; they admitted it? So that’s it. The title should be for the second team.”

The former Tottenham boss argued that Chelsea’s alleged regulatory breaches could have affected the competitive balance of the league, suggesting that Tottenham might have made different recruitment decisions if both clubs had operated under identical circumstances.

He noted that while Chelsea scored more goals and won more matches on the pitch, Tottenham did not necessarily have the same opportunities available to strengthen their squad before the campaign began.

“We can say that they scored goals, they won games. OK. But it’s completely fair to say that we didn’t compete before the start of the season with the same card. Maybe with the same rules, we could’ve signed some players that would have made the team better or scored more goals,” he said.

The historical breaches were reported by Chelsea’s new ownership group, BlueCo, after it took control of the club in 2022 following the departure of Abramovich. Chelsea avoided a points deduction as part of the disciplinary process, but Pochettino believes the consequences should have extended to the title itself.

He stressed, however, that his argument was not intended to undermine Chelsea’s performances during the 2016/17 campaign or Conte’s managerial achievement.

“I don’t say that Chelsea didn’t play well, that Conte was not great. I don’t say that. I don’t want the message to be twisted. But if you broke the rules, then ciao, you need to give it to another team. I don’t know why that didn’t happen,” Pochettino added.

The Argentine also highlighted the contribution of Hazard, who scored 16 Premier League goals during Chelsea’s title-winning campaign, but maintained that the wider issue was the consistent application of football regulations.

Pochettino argued that clubs should compete under the same rules and conditions, insisting that fairness in the application of regulations is essential to maintaining the integrity of the competition.