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Former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has made the striking claim that Spurs should be recognised retrospectively as winners of the 2016-17 Premier League title. The Argentine believes Chelsea’s admission of financial rule breaches means the trophy ought to belong in north London. Although the Blues were fined £10 million by the FA earlier this summer, Pochettino feels the absence of sporting sanctions amounts to a failure of fair play.

The 2016-17 title race revisited

The Football Association recently hit Chelsea with a £10 million fine and a suspended transfer ban. The punishment came after the club admitted to 74 breaches of financial rules during Roman Abramovich’s ownership. Those violations took place between 2011 and 2018 and were focused on illegal payments to unregistered agents linked to major transfers.

Chelsea’s current owners self-reported those irregularities after buying the club in 2022. Players connected to the breaches include Eden Hazard, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic, all of whom played important roles as Antonio Conte led the Blues to the Premier League title in the 2016-17 season.

Tottenham ended that campaign seven points behind in second place. Even though Spurs had the best attack in the division, the strongest defence and the fewest defeats, they still finished the season without silverware. Now, their former manager believes the official record should be changed.

‘We deserve to be champions’

Pochettino remains firm in his view that his former side were denied domestic glory because the competition was not played on equal terms. He insisted that a financial punishment alone is not enough for repeated 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 coach pointed to the different operating conditions under which the two London clubs competed. “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 argued that matters could have turned out differently had both clubs worked under the same financial limits. “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.”

Uneven playing fields at the bridge

Despite having managed Chelsea during the 2023-24 season, Pochettino did not hold back in addressing his former club. “The Chelsea fans will be upset with me because I’m saying this,” he admitted. “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 he praised his fellow coach, Pochettino maintained that sporting integrity has to 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 also warned that failing to impose stronger sporting sanctions creates the wrong message. “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’.” Looking back on his departure from Spurs in 2019, he added: “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.”

Will English football set a precedent?

English football authorities have traditionally been reluctant to strip major titles for financial misconduct, instead favouring points deductions in recent seasons. But with financial fair play and sustainability regulations now under greater scrutiny across the Premier League, past cases such as Chelsea’s are likely to keep fuelling strong debate.

Any retrospective action against the Blues still appears highly unlikely, meaning the history books will remain unchanged for now. Even so, Pochettino’s remarks are certain to intensify the wider discussion about sporting integrity and the way the Premier League regulates its richest clubs in the future.