Mauricio Pochettino has taken aim at the circumstances surrounding Chelsea’s 2016/17 Premier League title, arguing that Tottenham Hotspur should have been declared champions after Chelsea were found to have committed historical financial rule breaches.
The former Tottenham manager was speaking about the season when Spurs finished seven points behind Chelsea, who claimed the Premier League crown under Antonio Conte with 93 points.
Pochettino believes the subsequent discovery of Chelsea’s historical breaches changes how the title race should be viewed. He argued that Tottenham were not given the same financial conditions as their London rivals and should benefit from the consequences of the violations.
“We didn’t compete with the same rules,” Pochettino said. He added that Tottenham might have strengthened their squad differently if the same financial circumstances had applied to both clubs.
“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 said.
Chelsea’s historical case was investigated after the club’s current ownership voluntarily reported potential breaches to the Premier League in 2022. The league later confirmed that undisclosed third-party payments connected to Chelsea had been made between 2011 and 2018 for players, unregistered agents and other parties.
The Premier League said the payments should have been treated as payments made by Chelsea and disclosed to the league. Chelsea subsequently accepted fines totalling £10.75 million, while the club was also handed a nine-month academy transfer ban and a suspended one-year first-team transfer ban.
Despite the severity of the sanctions, Chelsea have not been stripped of their 2016/17 title. The Premier League stated that its financial assessment found that Chelsea would not have breached the relevant Profitability and Sustainability Rules even if the disputed payments had been included in their historical financial submissions.
Chelsea also stressed that it had voluntarily disclosed the issues and cooperated extensively with investigators. The club said the Premier League had recognised its “exceptional cooperation” and maintained that the financial investigation had not established a breach of the applicable loss limits.
Pochettino nevertheless believes sporting consequences should have followed.
“I’ve said that we should win one title, one Premier League. We should have been awarded it,” he said.
Tottenham had pushed Chelsea throughout the 2016/17 campaign, but Conte’s team ultimately secured the championship after a remarkable season that included 30 victories.
For now, Chelsea remain the official 2016/17 Premier League champions. Pochettino’s intervention, however, has reopened the debate over whether historical financial violations should ever lead to sporting honours being reconsidered.
