Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that his Tottenham Hotspur side deserves to be crowned Premier League champions for the 2016/17 season following Chelsea’s rule breach.
Pochettino, who was Tottenham Hotspur manager that season, finished as runner-up to Chelsea, who clinched the title. Chelsea, under Antonio Conte, finished the campaign with 93 points, while Tottenham, who finished in second place, had 86 points.
Tottenham enjoyed an impressive 2016-17 Premier League season, suffering fewer defeats than any other team while also leading the league in goals scored and goals conceded. Despite those outstanding numbers, Mauricio Pochettino’s side finished seven points behind Antonio Conte’s Chelsea.
Chelsea were hit with a £10 million fine by the FA this summer and handed a suspended transfer ban after admitting to breaches of agent regulations during Roman Abramovich’s ownership. The violations related to player transfers carried out between 2011 and 2018.
The FA’s case centres on millions of pounds in payments made to unregistered agents in connection with signings, including Eden Hazard, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic, all of whom were part of Chelsea’s title-winning side in 2016-17. Pochettino believes that Hazard may have made the difference that year.
Despite the punishment, Chelsea did not receive any sporting sanction. Mauricio Pochettino, whose Tottenham side finished second behind Chelsea in the 2016-17 Premier League season, believes the title should be taken away from Chelsea and awarded to Spurs instead.
“I’ve said that we should win one title, one Premier League. 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.”
“They were punished, they admitted (it), so that’s it. 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. 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. It’s not me complaining. It’s the truth.”
“The Chelsea fans will be upset with me because I’m saying this,” said Pochettino, who managed Chelsea in the 2023-24 season. “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.”
“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.”
“What is being promoted and incentivised is to break the rules. “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.”
“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.”
