Pochettino: Tottenham Should Be Awarded the 2017 Premier League Title

Mauricio Pochettino wants Chelsea stripped of the 2016-17 championship, and the trophy handed instead to the Tottenham team he was in charge of at the time.

Speaking to The Telegraph in a wide-ranging interview in London, the former Spurs head coach argued that the two clubs had not been competing on equal terms that season.

His argument rests on the sanction handed to Chelsea this summer. The club was fined £10m for breaching rules on payments to agents between 2009 and 2022, having admitted £47m went undisclosed to agents outside the register, and to third parties, on deals done between 2011 and 2018. No sporting penalty was applied and the punishment was not applied retrospectively.

“For sure, we [Tottenham] deserve to be champions for that year because we were second best. We should have been awarded it. We should win one title, one Premier League.

“They [Chelsea] were punished, they admitted it, so that’s it. The title should be for the team that was second. It’s not me complaining, it’s the truth. We didn’t compete with the same rules.

“The Chelsea fans will be upset with me because I’m saying this. But if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I’d admit the same and say ‘look, we don’t deserve the title because we broke the rules’.”

Tottenham finished second that season, seven points behind Antonio Conte’s Chelsea, with a squad that conceded fewer goals than any other side in the division.

He returned to the same principle when pressed on whether he was questioning the football itself:

“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. No. For everyone it needs to be the same rules.

“I don’t say that they didn’t play well or that the coach, [Antonio] Conte was not great. I don’t say that. But if you broke the rules, in the moment, then ‘ciao’ – you need to give it [the title] to another team.”

His wider objection is to what a fine on its own signals to everyone else:

“What is being promoted and incentivised is to break the rules. If you don’t punish in the way that you need to punish, I say ‘yeah, but I lost my job because we didn’t win a title’.”

On the charges still outstanding against Manchester City, who deny any wrongdoing, he would not go as far:

“I cannot give my opinion on City like in the other case because we are still waiting for that to happen. We were fighting with clubs [who worked] in a completely different way to us [Tottenham]. We operated in a different way.”

📞The Call That Came Too Late

Pochettino also confirmed that Tottenham contacted him during last season’s upheaval, after Thomas Frank was dismissed in February and before Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment. He was by then committed to preparing the United States for the World Cup.

“Yeah but at this moment they called everyone, they called all the coaches! Free and not free!

“The problem was that the timings were never the best. When I was free, I never received a contact and then when I was working, I received a contact, but I cannot make the decision to come back. It was a little bit unlucky. But maybe one day the stars will align and it can happen. If I was free, of course, I would come. But I wasn’t free. I was preparing for the World Cup.”

Asked whether he would have come back even with Spurs in the Championship:

“Yes, of course. It’s the only club that I am always open to help. Whatever division. Another club, no. But Tottenham, yes.”

He has since signed a four-year contract with the United States, and acknowledged that a commitment of that length changes the calculation in a way his previous deal, which ran only as far as the World Cup, did not.

🤝On Daniel Levy

Pochettino was sacked by Daniel Levy in November 2019, six months after the Champions League final defeat to Liverpool. Levy was himself forced out by the Lewis family last year. Asked how Levy is:

“I think he feels like [I did] when I was sacked! Now he knows the feeling. Yes, I keep in touch with him. I never made the situation personal.

“When that happens [to Levy], you are more empathetic with people now. Because you can sack a coach. But in the way that I felt in this moment, that we felt... all the coaching staff... it’s like you receive the letter, you are sacked, pick up your things and you can never come back. And say goodbye to the people; maybe 200, 300 people that were your family. And you cannot say goodbye, you cannot send a text, you cannot do nothing. And that was really tough for me. I was talking with him about that.

“Of course, I am not happy that now he feels the same. Because I am not a person who has bad feelings. Yes, it’s difficult because for him, 25 years, building his house, his club, and what happened after was tough for him, for his family and I am so sorry for him and for everyone.”

On the almost £400m Tottenham spent this summer — set against his own final years, when Spurs signed nobody at all in 2018:

“I am happy [Tottenham are spending],” Pochettino said. “It’s good for the club. Because after the last two or three years… they were in the relegation battle … it’s to try to improve and not suffer. Now it’s about performing. The facilities are the best in the world and now you spend big money and… I am happy because I feel Tottenham.”