Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has called for Chelsea to be stripped of their 2016-17 Premier League title following the club’s admission of financial rule breaches.
Pochettino believes the championship should instead be awarded to Tottenham, who finished runners-up to Chelsea that season.
Chelsea were fined £10 million ($13.4 million) in July and handed a suspended two-window transfer ban over breaches of Premier League regulations during the ownership of Roman Abramovich.
The club admitted to 74 breaches of Football Association regulations relating to agents, intermediaries and third-party investment in players.
The violations were self-reported by Chelsea’s current owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, in 2022 while they were completing their takeover of the club from Abramovich.
Some of the breaches involved transfers involving Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic, players who played important roles in Chelsea’s title-winning campaign under Antonio Conte.
Tottenham, managed by Pochettino at the time, finished seven points behind Chelsea.
Speaking to reporters, Pochettino argued that the punishment did not go far enough and that Tottenham should have been awarded the title.
“We should win one Premier League, we should have been awarded it,” Pochettino said.
“If that 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 team that was second.”
Pochettino acknowledged Chelsea’s performances on the pitch but argued that the clubs had not competed under the same conditions before the season began.
“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 former Tottenham boss, who went on to manage Chelsea during the 2023-24 season, said he would hold his own club to the same standard if the circumstances were reversed.
“I have no doubt and I’m not scared to say the truth. The Chelsea fans will be upset with me but if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I’d admit the same: ‘We don’t deserve the title because we broke the rules,’” he said.
Pochettino stressed that his comments were not intended to diminish Chelsea’s performances or Conte’s achievements during the title-winning campaign.
“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,” he said.
However, he maintained that sporting competitions could only be fair if every club operated under the same regulations.
“For everyone it needs to be the same rules. And then you have the capacity to create the best team,” Pochettino said.
“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, who currently manages the United States national team, recently signed a contract extension that will keep him in charge through the 2030 World Cup.
