Pochettino: Strip Chelsea of 2017 title and give it to my Spurs side
Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea should be stripped of their 2016-17 Premier League title after financial rule breaches and that the trophy should go to the Tottenham team he took to second spot.
Chelsea were fined £10 million in July and handed a suspended two-window transfer ban for breaches from the Roman Abramovich era.
The club admitted 74 FA offences covering agents, intermediaries and third-party investment.
Current owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital self-reported the issues in 2022 while buying the club from the Russian billionaire.
The cases involved deals for Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic — key figures in Antonio Conte’s title-winning side. Pochettino’s Spurs finished seven points behind.
“We should win one Premier League, we should have been awarded it,” he told reporters this week.
“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.”
He argued the sides did not start level. “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,” added Pochettino.
Pochettino later managed Chelsea in 2023-24 and now coaches the United States, with a deal through to the 2030 World Cup. He said he would apply the same standard if Spurs had been the club in breach.
“I don’t say that Chelsea didn’t play well, that Conte was not great. 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. What is being promoted and incentivised is to break the rules,” he concluded.
