Mauricio Pochettino calls for former club Chelsea to be stripped of Premier League title

Former Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino thinks the Blues got off lightly (Picture:Getty Images)

Mauricio Pochettino believes Chelsea should be stripped of the 2016-17 Premier League title and it should be handed to Tottenham Hotspur.

The Argentine, who went on to manage Chelsea, was in charge of Spurs at the time as they finished second, seven points adrift of Antonio Conte ’s Blues.

Conte’s side finished with 93 points, led by Diego Costa up front and a fabulous season from Eden Hazard behind him, while the likes of N’Golo Kante, Gary Cahill and David Luiz all made the PFA Team of the Year.

However, it has since been tainted as Chelsea’s owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, self-reported 74 breaches of FA rules related to secret payments to unregistered agents after they purchased the club from Roman Abramovich in 2022.

Chelsea admitted to making £47m in secret payments to unregistered agents and intermediaries between 2011 and 2018.

Deals for the likes of Hazard, Luiz, Willian and Nemanja Matic were all found to have broken rules.

After an initial punishment included a points deduction, on appeal Chelsea were fined £10 million and given a suspended two-window transfer ban by the Football Association over the summer.

Pochettino left after one season in charge of Chelsea (Picture: Getty Images)

Pochettino feels that the punishment should extend beyond this and Chelsea should not be considered champions in 2017 as they broke rules to win the Premier League. Instead, his Tottenham team should be awarded the title.

‘We should win one Premier League , we should have been awarded it,’ said Pochettino. ‘If that was true, then we deserve to be champions that year, for sure. They were punished, they admitted it? So that’s it. The title should be for the team that was second.

‘We can say that they scored goals, they won games. OK. 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, we could’ve signed some players that would have made the team better or scored more goals.’

Eden Hazard was key to Chelsea’s success in 2016/17 (Picture: Getty Images)

While the Blues had plenty of world class players at the time, it was suggested to Pochettino that Hazard made a particular difference.

‘Maybe yes,’ said the USA manager. ‘I have no doubt and I’m not scared to say the truth. The Chelsea fans will be upset with me. But if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I’d admit the same: “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. For everyone it needs to be the same rules. And then you have the capacity to create the best team.

‘I don’t say that Chelsea didn’t play well, that Conte was not great. I don’t say that. I don’t want the message to be twisted. But if you broke the rules then ciao – you need to give it to another team.