Mauricio Pochettino believes his Tottenham Hotspur should have received the 2016-17 Premier League title because Chelsea violated 74 financial regulations.

Chelsea was fined £10 million by the FA and received a suspended transfer ban last summer after admitting to breaching agent regulations during Roman Abramovich's ownership of the club, particularly regarding player purchases between 2011 and 2018. Pochettino, who finished second with Tottenham Hotspur behind Chelsea in the 2016-17 season, believes Chelsea's title should be stripped and reassigned to Spurs.

"I said we should have won a title, a Premier League title," Pochettino told journalists. "We should have received that trophy. If it's true, and it was true, we absolutely deserved to be champions that season. Because we were second."

Tottenham Hotspur lost the fewest matches, scored the most goals, and conceded the fewest goals in the 2016-17 Premier League season, but ultimately finished seven points behind Chelsea under Antonio Conte.

Chelsea's new owners discovered accounting irregularities during their acquisition of the club in 2022 and proactively reported them to authorities, subsequently admitting to 74 breaches of FA Rule E1.2. But Pochettino argues that Chelsea and Tottenham were fundamentally playing by different rules during the years in question.

"They were punished, they admitted it, and that's it," Pochettino said. "The trophy should go to second place. We weren't competing with the same rules at that time. OK, now we can say they scored goals and won matches. But it's totally fair to say we weren't competing with the same rules before the season started. Maybe if we had the same rules, and if we had acted the same way, maybe we could have signed some players and improved and scored more goals. I'm not complaining; it's just a fact."

The FA's charges focused primarily on millions of pounds in unregistered agent payments related to player purchases, including Eden Hazard, David Luiz, and Nemanja Matic—all part of Chelsea's title-winning squad in 2016-17. Pochettino suggested that Hazard may have been a key factor in Chelsea's title win that year.

"Chelsea fans won't be happy that I say this," Pochettino said, having managed Chelsea during the 2023-24 season, "but if we were breaking the rules at Tottenham back then, I would admit it and say: 'Look, we don't deserve to be champions because we were breaking the rules.' If some clubs play offside and others don't, or some use VAR and others don't, it doesn't work. No. The rules must be the same for everyone, and everyone must try to build the best team under the same rules."

Pochettino clarified that his comments were not directed at the players or coaches. "I'm not saying they played badly. Conte was a fantastic manager, and I don't want my words to be misunderstood. But if you were breaking the rules, then goodbye—that's disqualification. The title should go to another team."

English football has historically been reluctant to strip titles due to rule breaches, but Pochettino believes this practice sends a very negative message to clubs.

"It actually encourages and promotes breaking the rules," he said, "because if you're not punished the way you should be, people will say: 'OK, but I lost my job because we didn't win the title.'"

Pochettino, who failed to win trophies during his time at Tottenham and was sacked in November 2019, believes his work should be viewed differently in this context. "We were competing against clubs with a completely different operating model at that time. I think we deserved more recognition. We operated differently than they did."

Tradotto dall'IA.

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