Mauricio Pochettino probably has the right to complain after Chelsea admitted breaching 74 financial rules relating to player transfers between 2011 and 2018, during Roman Abramovich's ownership.Since then, Todd Boehly's American-led regime has taken over at Stamford Bridge. It was the new administration that discovered the irregularities and reported them to the authorities. Among the breaches were payments to unlicensed agents, with Abramovich’s Chelsea allegedly paying millions in connection with transfers.The Football Association fined Chelsea £10 million recently, but there will be no sporting punishment. Poch believes there should be.##TWITTER_<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">🚨🤯Mauricio Pochettino says Chelsea should be STRIPPED of their 2016/2017 Premier League titles and award to Tottenham.<br><br>Pochettino believes Tottenham should retrospectively be crowned Champions after Chelsea were punished for 74 breaches of FA rules relating to undisclosed… <a href="https://t.co/eSwGTNVCZ8">pic.twitter.com/eSwGTNVCZ8</a></p>— Speedline (@speedlne) <a href="https://x.com/speedlne/status/2097941200611242366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>##The former Tottenham boss argues that Chelsea should be stripped of the 2016/17 Premier League title and that it should instead be awarded to Spurs, who finished second."If everything that happened is true, then of course we deserve to be champions that year. We finished second. They were punished, they admitted it, that's it. The title should go to the runners-up," Pochettino said."We were not competing under the same rules. It is completely fair to say that. Maybe, if the same rules had applied to everyone, we would have signed different players who could have made us better. I'm not complaining. This is the truth."19.45: (3.15) Fenerbahce (3.45) Roma (2.25)Pochettino's Tottenham had the best defensive record in the league, scored the most goals and suffered the fewest defeats that season. Yet they still finished seven points behind Antonio Conte's Chelsea.A decade later, it emerged that Chelsea had made millions of pounds in payments to unlicensed intermediaries during transfers involving players such as Eden Hazard, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic.Poch knows Chelsea fans will not appreciate his argument, but insists the principle is bigger than one club."If Tottenham had broken the rules, I would admit it too. I would say, 'Look, we don't deserve the title because we broke the rules.' It is impossible for some clubs to play with offside and others without it. Or for one team to have VAR and another not to. The rules have to be the same for everyone, as does the ability to build the best team."##LINKED_NEWS_68849##He has nothing but praise for Conte and the Chelsea players, but then came the sting in the tail."I don't want my message to be misunderstood, but if you broke the rules, then at that moment it's goodbye. The title goes to another team."That is not going to happen in England. In fact, in the major European leagues, title redistribution for sporting-rule breaches has been an exceptionally rare occurrence in the 21st century, with Italy providing the most notable precedent. And Pochettino believes that sends the wrong message."When we don't punish people the way they should be punished, we encourage clubs to break the rules. I lost my job because we didn't win the title," he concluded.##EDITORS_CHOICE##
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