Chelsea signed Eden Hazard from a string of other clubs by paying £5.6m to an unregistered agent.

Should Tottenham be retrospectively crowned Premier League champions for the 2016-17 season? That's the opinion of former manager Mauricio Pochettino, who led Spurs to a second-place finish - seven points behind Chelsea - that season.

This is about Chelsea making £47m in secret payments, according to a Premier League investigation, to unregistered agents and third parties to seal transfers between 2011 and 2018. The transfers included Eden Hazard, Samuel Eto'o, Willian, Ramires, David Luiz, Andre Schurrle and Nemanja Matic. Four of those - Hazard, Willian, Luiz and Matic - were at the club in 2016-17.

During that period Chelsea won two Premier League titles (2014-15 and 2016-17), two FA Cups (2011-12 and 2017-18), the EFL Cup (2014-15) and the Europa League (2018–19). Chelsea have been fined by Uefa, the Premier League and the Football Association, but Pochettino thinks that is not enough.

"If they admitted they broke the rules, the Premier League title was for the second-best team," Pochettino said. Pochettino is one of the first people of significance to articulate what many feel - that Chelsea got off lightly with a fine.

Fans of Everton and Nottingham Forest have pointed out that their clubs faced points deductions for relatively small profit and sustainability breaches, while Chelsea sought to sign star players with secret payments.

Meanwhile, there is no sign of a verdict in the case of Manchester City's 115 charges for alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules. Does Pochettino have a point? And how much of an impact did those four players have on the title race?

Hazard is seen as the poster boy for Chelsea's breaches. The Blues fought off most of Europe's top clubs to sign him from Lille for £32m in the summer of 2012. Between May 2013 and August 2016, according to the investigation, seven payments totalling £5.6m were made to an unregistered agent "for the benefit of the club in connection with Hazard's transfer".

Pochettino's argument is that Spurs could have beaten other clubs to the signing of players of similar ability had they also ignored the rules.

What about Hazard's impact in the 2016-17 season? The Belgium forward started 36 Premier League games, scored 16 goals and provided five assists. Only Cesar Azpilicueta started more matches, and only Diego Costa netted more goals (20). Hazard was Chelsea's player of the year, was named in the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) team of the year, and made the shortlist for PFA player of the year.

Then there's the direct impact of his goals and assists in the results of four fixtures. Hazard scored the first goal in a 2-1 win over West Ham in August, then scored a goal and provided an assist in a 2-0 victory over Southampton in November. In March he scored the opener as Chelsea again beat the Hammers 2-1, and got both goals in a 2-0 win over Manchester City in April. You could argue that input was worth 10 points.

There is no doubt that Hazard had a huge influence, but this was his fifth season at the club. It was not as if Chelsea signed him in the summer of 2016.

Willian joined Chelsea from Anzhi Makhachkala in 2013, with the investigation finding that transfer fee payments totalling £19.2m were made to two unregistered entities in connection with his move and that of Eto'o.

Willian was not a regular starter in 2016-17, with 19 of his 34 appearances coming from the bench. But he still had a huge influence, scoring eight goals and providing eight assists. The Brazilian's attacking returns were crucial in four matches. He had an assist in a 1-0 win at Sunderland in December. He scored two goals in a 4-2 victory over Stoke in December, and the first goal as Chelsea beat Stoke 2-1 in March. He provided an assist for the winning goal in a 4-3 victory over Watford in May. His contributions helped Chelsea take eight points from those fixtures.

Crucially, Chelsea nipped in at the last minute to sign Willian from under the noses of Spurs, who might argue that was only because of the secret payments.

The transfers of David Luiz and Willian were part of the investigation into illegal payments. The investigation found that Chelsea made payments totalling £5.1m between 2012 and 2015 "to provide talent identification services in certain European countries". This was identified as payments in relation to the registrations of Ramires, Luiz, Schurrle and Matic.

However, by 2016-17 Matic and Luiz were in their second spells at Chelsea. The deal with Benfica which meant Matic and Luiz swapped clubs in 2011 was looked into. Matic returned to Stamford Bridge in 2014, with Luiz having a spell at Paris St-Germain from 2014 to 2016. While the deals that took the players back to Chelsea were not specifically referenced, the association was created.

Matic played 35 league games in 2016-17, including 30 in the starting XI. He scored one goal and set up seven. Only one of those attacking contributions influenced a result, but that was an assist for Chelsea's first goal in a 2-1 win over Tottenham in November. Luiz, who was named in the PFA team of the season, started 33 matches and scored one goal - the opener in a 1-1 draw at Liverpool in January.

How Chelsea signed a star team with hidden payments Chelsea fined but avoid suspended points deduction Tottenham were relentless at the end of the 2016-17 season, winning 12 of their final 13 matches to finish on 86 points. Yet Antonio Conte's Chelsea were almost as relentless, winning 11 of their last 13 to take the title with 93 points.

Spurs' tally would have been enough for the title in 2015-16, when Leicester finished on 81. However, since 1999-2000, when Manchester United were champions on 79 points, 86 points would only have won the title twice, including the two most recent seasons.

Tottenham's problem in 2016-17 was too many draws at the start of the campaign. Despite an unbeaten 11-game start, only five of those were victories. Chelsea lost more matches - five to Spurs' four - but secured 30 wins to Tottenham's 26.

Pochettino might argue that the attacking influence from Willian and Hazard proved the difference, with those two players having attacking contributions in eight different matches which led to points.

Then there is the mere aspect of sporting advantage - how the signings of players like Hazard enabled Chelsea to win trophies, qualify for the Champions League and therefore attract more top talent. Pochettino feels he should have a Premier League title to his name.

Remember that he managed Chelsea for one season, when he struggled to win over supporters. Chelsea finished sixth in 2023-24, but neither Pochettino nor the club are likely to look back fondly on that period.

It is different at Tottenham, with the Argentine still adored for his five-year spell in charge from 2014. As well as finishing as Premier League runners-up, he took the club to the Champions League final in 2018-19. The 86 points earned in 2016-17 is a club record too.

So do Spurs fans share his view? "Of course I do," said Chris Paouros, co-founder and co-chair of Proud Lilywhites, external and Women of The Lane., external.

"He could tell me the moon was made of halloumi and I'd nod along. The Spurs 2016-17 team was the best in the league by most measures: best attack, best defence, fewest defeats, unbeaten at home in the last season of the old White Hart Lane.

"If the playing field was tilted, the least you can do is ask the question." Paouros knows Spurs will not be handed the title, but said the "rules have to mean something, whoever benefits".

There is another side to this, however. If you get given a title a decade later because of a rule breach, could you celebrate it? "It would still be something that Spurs fans would celebrate," said Tristan Foot, secretary of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust. "A victory over Chelsea, albeit 10 years after the event."

But that sense of injustice is still there for other Premier League clubs. "It means that to an extent crime does pay in football," Foot said. "And that's the serious underlying part all of this.

"During the transfer window they were signing players that we had no chance of winning, the obvious example being Willian. The Premier League has got to be better about imposing sporting sanctions and making sure that its rules actually have teeth."

With all investigations now concluded, it seems unlikely that Pochettino - or anyone else - will get a retrospective trophy parade.

Will clubs get that same feeling when the Manchester City saga is finally over?

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