‘We deserve to be champions!’ - Mauricio Pochettino demands Tottenham be awarded 2016-17 Premier League title after Chelsea financial breaches

The Football Association recently slapped Chelsea with a £10 million fine and a suspended transfer ban. This punishment followed the club's admission of 74 financial rule breaches under Roman Abramovich's ownership. The infractions occurred between 2011 and 2018, centering on illicit payments to unregistered agents for key transfers.

Chelsea's current ownership self-reported these irregularities after purchasing the club in 2022. Signings implicated in the breaches include Eden Hazard, David Luiz, and Nemanja Matic, who all played crucial roles when Antonio Conte guided the Blues to the Premier League crown in the 2016-17 campaign.

Tottenham finished just seven points adrift in second place that year. Despite boasting the division's best attack, tightest defence, and fewest defeats, Spurs ended the season empty-handed. Now, their former manager feels the record books must be rewritten.

Pochettino remains adamant that his former club were robbed of domestic glory by an uneven playing field. He stressed that a financial penalty is insufficient for systemic rule-breaking.

“I’ve said that we should win one title, one Premier League,” Pochettino told reporters. “We should have been awarded it. If that was true, and that happened, for sure we deserve to be champions for that year. Because we were the second best.”

The Argentine tactician highlighted the distinct operational limits placed on the two London rivals. "They were punished, they admitted (it), so that’s it?" he said. "The title should be for the team that was second. We didn’t compete with the same rules. OK, now we can say that they scored goals, they won games. But it’s completely fair to say that we didn’t compete before the start of the season with the same card."

Pochettino suggested that a level financial landscape could have changed history. "Maybe with the same rules, if we apply the same things, maybe we could have signed some players that would have made the team better, or scored more goals," he explained. "It’s not me complaining. It’s the truth."

Despite managing Chelsea during the 2023-24 season, Pochettino did not shy away from confronting his former employers. "The Chelsea fans will be upset with me because I’m saying this," he conceded. "But if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I would admit the same and say, 'Look, we don’t deserve the title because we broke the rules'. It’s impossible if only some clubs play with offside and another plays with no offside. Or one plays with VAR and another plays with no VAR. No. For everyone, it needs to be the same rules, and the capacity to create the best team."

While praising his coaching counterpart, Pochettino insisted sporting integrity must come first. "I don’t say that they did not play well. Conte, the coach, was great. I don’t want this message twisted. But if you broke the rules, in the moment, then 'ciao'. You need to give it to another team."

He warned that a lack of severe sporting sanctions sets a dangerous precedent. "What is being promoted and incentivised is to break the rules," he argued. "If you don’t punish the way that you need to punish, I say 'yes, but I lost my job because we didn’t win the title'." Reflecting on his own Spurs exit in 2019, he concluded: "We were fighting with clubs [who worked] in a completely different way to us. I think we deserve more. We operated in a different way."

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