LONDON (AP) — Mauricio Pochettino believes Chelsea should be stripped of the 2016-17 Premier League title for financial breaches and the Tottenham team he managed that season should be given the honor retrospectively.

In July, Chelsea was fined 10 million pounds ($13.4 million) and given a suspended two-window transfer ban after appealing penalties for breaching English Football Association agent rules.

“We should have been awarded it,” Pochettino said in published interviews on Thursday. “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.”

Chelsea won the Premier League by a seven-point margin over Tottenham in 2017.

Chelsea was initially given a suspended six-point deduction along with the fine but the points penalty was replaced by the suspended transfer ban.

Chelsea admitted to 74 breaches in total of FA regulations covering agents, working with intermediaries and third party investment in players.

Pochettino left Tottenham in 2019. He went on to coach Chelsea in 2023-24, leaving by mutual consent after a troubled campaign in which he failed to secure qualification for the Champions League. He’s now coaching the United States.

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