Pochettino believes Chelsea should be stripped of their 2016/17 Premier League title. Does he have a point?

Former Tottenham Hotspur and current US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino believes that the Premier League title won by Chelsea in 2016/17 should be stripped off them and handed over to his Spurs side, who finished second that season.

For context, earlier this year Chelsea were fined £10 million by the Football Association and £10.75 million by the Premier League for breaking financial rules. They were also handed a suspended transfer ban of two windows. The charge was that the club took help of agents who were unlicensed and tried to hide the nature of their transfer dealings from 2009 to 2022, when the club was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

BlueCo, the current owners of the club, chose to self-report these wrongdoings, and that helped them avoid a points deduction. But they were not able to avoid punishment and were fined and banned subsequently.

The dealings for players like Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz, and Nemanja Matic were all under the scanner, and these were the very players who were the crucial cogs in Chelsea’s title-winning wheel in 2016/17 under Antonio Conte. It was also the last time they won the Premier League.

That season, Pochettino’s Spurs finished seven points behind their London rivals. The Argentine claims that, with Chelsea themselves admitting that they breached the rules, it should be a no-brainer that his Spurs side should be handed the league title.

However, the question arises: does his claim have a valid ground to stand on?

Firstly, his claim is based on pretty sound reasoning about the fact that, if the concerned party has admitted its guilt, and that the club’s actions indeed resulted in the team winning the title, then the title should be taken away. It is just like the notion of a criminal admitting their guilt and then being sentenced to the appropriate punishment.

A team has gained unfair advantage by circumventing the rules, and Pochettino believes that said team should be punished more severely than it has been. Stripping the Blues of their 2016/17 league title would go some way to set an example.

However, when it comes to reality, Pochettino may have to stay content with the second place where his team finished, because there is no precedent of teams being stripped off their titles after offences like the one Chelsea committed. The case that comes closest to theirs is that of direct rivals Manchester City, who are yet to find out the ruling on their alleged 115 charges of financial doping and circumvention of rules.

Moreover, that Chelsea themselves brought these wrongdoings to the notice of the authorities definitely played a part in the soft nature of the punishment that was handed to them. Had those wrongdoings surfaced from any other source, there would have been a massive hue and cry, and Chelsea would probably have had to worry about further repercussions.

While teams have been stripped of their titles due to match-fixing (Juventus in the infamous Calciopoli scandal) and bribing opposition players to throw a match (Marseille in 1993), financial doping is yet to see such punishment being meted out.

So, while it was a pretty good and determined try from Pochettino, it eventually will come down to nought because of a lack of precedent, as well as the fact that the punishment for the wrongdoing has already been delivered.

Pochettino does have a point, but it is on loose ground, so it won’t really hold much sway.