Spygate
Crazy eh?
Southampton expelled from the play-off final today and deducted 4 points from the start of next season’s Championship. Yet they’ve lodged an appeal and on Wednesday will argue the punishment is disproportionate. The EFL said it would be “working to try and resolve any appeal on Wednesday, 20 May”.
Southampton, a famous club with excellent support have been tarnished possibly forever. Tonda Eckert will have to be fired, this error of judgment is going to cost the club £200m.
Crazy that in this day and age with AI and tech that can analyze everything to the nth degree, a young man gets caught with a camera hiding behind a tree. I still can’t believe it, and I feel for Southampton’s fans and players if they were unaware of their coaches habit of cheating.
I really can’t see an appeal having any chance of success. Saints have to demonstrate that the Tribunal’s punishment was disproportionate. On the basis that this looks more than a one-off, I can only see further investigation and possible sanctions.
Boro brought to the EFL’s attention that Oxford and Ipswich had also been spyed on. Possibly a coincidence that Southampton accepted this punishment as they didn’t win any of those three games. This practice is rife in European leagues but we call it cheating and I don’t think this ends here.
The assumption here is that this practice was encouraged and used to win an advantage over opposition teams by Tonda Eckert, their coaching staff which incudes Ben Garner and the technical director, Johannes Spors. 0-4 down in 20 minutes at The Valley now makes a world of sense. We should be checking CCTV at Avery Hill Park!
The EFL are ordinarily useless but they acted swiftly here (Man City mind still have 115 Premier League charges outstanding from between 2009 and 2018), but credit to the EFL and we now have a Middlesbrough v Hull City play-off final.
Update: Saints appeal rejected.
Now let’s deal with the cheating on the pitch.
Players diving, screaming , wrestling , challenging the ref with everything from a throw in upwards.
This is my big hate in football today.
Let’s start by not allowing anyone but the captain to speak to the ref.
And let’s call out the cheating on the pitch which never gets looked into properly on the tv in my opinion
👏 👏
I am not sure what value there would be in watching Oxford United training, but at least they didn’t bother with us. It will be interesting to see if this gets into the courts.
I suppose not, Wyn but it would be great to find out if they did or not. The first half at The Valley was such a freak. Owning up to spying on teams where the result had no material effect on the table is a little bit too much of a coincidence me thinks.
Seems strange that they go from relegation candidates to promotion hopefuls by changing their coach. I find it hard to believe that they didn’t spy on every opponent. The other two clubs that they have admitted to are just the ones that they have been found out about otherwise why spy on Oxford ?
I’m sure I saw a bloke walking a dog, and suspiciously dressed as a tree around Sparrows Lane a couple of times last season !!!!
Turns out it was a private eye, brought in by NJ’s missus to see where he was spending all those working hours !!!
EFL in wholly unprecedented competency shocker! Double surprise they got it all right too. The points deduction for next season is the genius part. Saints are bleating that the punishment is too severe. The resolution to the appeal will be some reduction or suspension of a couple of the points ‘because they pleaded guilty’. It sets a precedent for points deductions mid season when the next cheats are caught.
Personally think this is a bonkers punishment -possibly losing £200M because a bloke took some photos and possibly made a whatsapp of the Boro training session. I reality this would not have made a blind bit of difference once the players get on the pitch. As we all know plans very rarely go to plan and so I cant see how any advantage in reality could be gained by Saints.
You’d think so, Jon.
Today’s best coaches and analysts work so hard nowadays on patterns and models to do anything to gain an advantage and eradicate the unknown to grab that small margin that often wins games. Got to play to the rules though.
You only have to look at VAR, the biggest corrupt system in football, how on earth did havertz not get sent off the other night plus plenty of others through out the season. Then a day later they apologize they got it wrong out and out disgrace, I also agree with Les on field cheating rife unpunished. The EFL and football authorities got it all wrong interesting to see what man city get. Coyr
So true WA. Love how the big clubs bleat about VAR but get the majority of the decisions. Like Celtic.
I agree with Les bring in a sin bin like rugby union
Football is going rapidly down -hill with immoral actions both off and off pitches….fans are being conned by players,owners,VAR as we are being dictated by outside influences that is changing the very nature of the football matches we enjoyed ….the obvious reason is money and the immoral greed of players,clubs and broadcasters in recent years.
I have had enough of so called controller’s who have no interest in fans……just with making money !!!!
I’ve decided to stop going to Premiershipb and ELF games and will now focus on supporting my local amature team who offer honest football,exciting games,value for money and pure entertainment.. !!!!!
Agreeing with the comments about cheating which is rife in the game now. I see that Southampton players are talking about suing their club. Obviously that is about finance – but I would like to sue all the players who spoil my Saturday by their constant cheating.
Every time they fake an injury – especially the clutching of the head
Every time they time waste
Every time they grab someone in the box like its a game of rugby
Every time they pull a shirt
The pundits on TV don’t seem to care, nor do the referees or the managers – so we are all just expected to accept its part of the modern game.
Glad the EFL haven’t back-tracked – a good start – but please sort everything else out.