Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has called on the Premier League to strip Chelsea of their 2016/17 league title and retrospectively award the championship to Tottenham Hotspur.

Pochettino made the demand after Chelsea were fined £10.75 million by the Premier League over historical financial breaches involving undisclosed payments linked to transfers and third parties.

The breaches reportedly occurred between 2011 and 2018 and involved several players, including Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic.

Tottenham finished runners-up to Chelsea during the 2016/17 Premier League season, recording a club-record 86 points but ending the campaign seven points behind Antonio Conte’s side.

Speaking on the controversy, Pochettino argued that Tottenham should have been declared champions if Chelsea were found to have breached the competition’s rules.

«“We should win one Premier League, we should have been awarded it.”»The Argentine added that Tottenham deserved the title because Chelsea had allegedly gained an advantage by operating outside the rules.

«“If that [Chelsea’s rule-break] 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 said Tottenham did not compete with Chelsea under equal circumstances during the season, suggesting that his team could have strengthened its squad if it had operated with similar financial freedom.“We didn’t compete before the start of the season with the same card,” he said.

He added that Tottenham might have signed additional players who could have improved their chances of winning the league.“Maybe with the same rules, we could’ve signed some players that would have made the team better or scored more goals.”

Chelsea self-reported the historical issues following the club’s change of ownership in 2022 and subsequently cooperated with investigations into the breaches.However, the Premier League did not impose a sporting points deduction on Chelsea in relation to the findings.

Pochettino acknowledged that Chelsea performed strongly under Conte but insisted that sporting consequences should follow any confirmed rule violations.

“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,” he said.“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.”

The former Chelsea manager also said he would apply the same principle to Tottenham if the situation were reversed.“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.’”Tottenham’s 2016/17 campaign remains the club’s best-ever Premier League finish.

Spurs won 26 matches, suffered four defeats and accumulated 86 points.Chelsea, meanwhile, won 30 of their 38 league matches and finished top with 93 points.Despite Pochettino’s demand, Chelsea remain the officially recognised champions of the 2016/17 Premier League season, while Tottenham are still recorded as runners-up.