U.S. men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino said that Chelsea should be stripped of its Premier League 2016-17 title for breaching financial rules, and the trophy should be handed to runner-up Tottenham Hotspur, which he was in charge of at the time.

In July, Chelsea was handed a suspended two-window transfer ban and fined 10 million pounds for breaches of the league’s rules during the Roman Abramovich era.

Current owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital self-reported the 74 breaches to football authorities in 2022 while in the process of taking over ownership from Abramovich.

Pochettino, however, believes that the Blues have not been punished enough. “We (Tottenham) should win one Premier League; we should have been awarded it. 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,” Pochettino told reporters.

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The breaches involved deals to take Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic to Stamford Bridge, all central to Chelsea’s 2016-17 triumph under Antonio Conte, while Tottenham finished seven points behind in 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,” Pochettino, who managed Chelsea in the 2023-24 season, noted.

“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,” the 54-year-old said.

“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. I don’t know why that didn’t happen. What is being promoted and incentivised is to break the rules,” he added.

(With inputs from AFP)

Published on Sep 10, 2026