POCHETTINO SAYS CHELSEA SHOULD LOSE 2016-17 PREMIER LEAGUE TITLE

Mauricio Pochettino has stated that Chelsea should be stripped of their 2016-17 Premier League title and the honour retrospectively awarded to Tottenham, the team that finished second that season under his management. Pochettino, who managed Chelsea during the 2023-24 season and currently manages the United States, made the remarks in a wide-ranging interview. His Spurs team finished seven points behind Chelsea's title-winning campaign under Antonio Conte that year.

Chelsea were fined £10m by the Football Association in July and given a suspended two-window transfer ban for multiple violations of Premier League and Football Association rules committed between 2009 and 2022. The Premier League fined the club an additional £10.75m in March. Chelsea were found to have used unlicensed agents and sought to obscure the nature of their transfer business during that period; deals involving Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic were among those found to have breached the rules. These players were central to Chelsea's 2016-17 triumph. Chelsea's current ownership self-reported the breaches when it took over from Roman Abramovich in 2022, and the club avoided a points deduction as a result.

Pochettino argued that the punishment did not go far enough and that Tottenham deserved recognition as champions that season. He stated that Chelsea's rule breaches meant his Tottenham team "did not compete before the start of the season with the same card" and that under the same rules, Spurs could have signed players that would have improved their performance. Between 2009 and 2022, Chelsea won three league titles, two Champions Leagues, two Europa Leagues, four FA Cups and one League Cup during the period covered by the investigation.