Dman

No chance in my opinon. We've broken the rules, with no precedent to fall back on, I think we're royally fucked. Much like you, had we had a decent defense lawyer.. things maybe different.

further to this, given the EFL have clearly pushed for the harsest possible sentance, if a judge override upon appeal, does that essentially mean that Boro do not have a leg to stand on in terms of any legal claim?

Can someone more clued up than I am explain what Gibson could realistically sue the EFL for?

I personally think the first part will be thrown out as not relevant at this stage. We've admitted it. If we do have evidence of other clubs doing the same thing, it does some what mitigate the seriouness of it however.

For what its worth, I've been told we had some mitigating evidence against the whistleblower and that this is a widly carried out activity. Don't know a lot more than that though.

Yep. All the EFL will care about is their ££ here. Moving away from Wembely will seriously hurt their pockets.

I'll be amazed if leaks don't start to appear at some point this evening. At the very least, you'd imagine we'd have an understanding of what the potential punishment looks like.

I had a breif flick through his posts and it appears to consist of not much more than false ITK claims about spygate and avidly defending Cameron Archer. Can file this one under WUM or aggrieved family memeber of Archer.

Bullying 😂

where have you seen that?

If the EFL were pressing ahead with explusion as a recommendation, why would they need to apply pressure?

Agree. It otherwise makes no sense for them to be so public.

yeah I tend to agree. As I said the other day, from inside the club, I've been told we are expecting fine and points but are pushing for just a fine. The case of guilt is cut and dry. We're going to be found guilty, we're not denying it, just mitigating it. It makes no sense that the EFL would continue 'as-is' with ticket sales etc. other than some fancy arse covering "read T&C's", if they are heavily pushing for expulsion.

Which makes me think, given Boro's childish outburst in the form of a statement, the EFL haven't put forward expulsion as a appropriate sanction.

Of course we would. The final wouldn't be played at wembley anyway in such case.

Well, if the EFL aren't arguing / pushing for the necular option, is it likley that the panel would enforce it?

Yep. A points deduction & fine, whilst doesn't benefit boro in the immediate term (shouuld it anyway??), is something that can be consistently applied. They're not going to kick a side out of the leauge for it.

£10m and refused the right to play in the final....?

I think we will get removed from final only because its got to epic proportions with Middlesbrough having too much influence over EFL and the panel will not be impartial due to all the incorrect facts, assumptions on Saints being such an organised spying outfit during season and applying football tactics to suit each team. Boro have too much power plus with other teams they influence like the clubs thet have named as been spied on. The papers, media, pundits and Sky have had lots of time to present the case on behalf of Boro and anyone else that Saints shouldn't be in final. There is no counter news reports or anything from Saints. Its all very quiet on our side. The 3 people on panel will be influenced by what the see and hear and its very unlikely they will just look at what extent the affect of spying was on Saints season or the 2 leg semi final. The 2nd leg went ahead and Boro should have refused to play but they went ahead with it and that's now caused the who should be in final.

There is no way in hell they'll get through an appeal process in time for a game to be played on tuesday or wednesday.

I beleive they did... That's how these things work innit?

They clearly used his bank details to get his name, linked that to a linked in profile and found the photo on the website for good measure.

its also not a breach of their rules. So they'd be applying a punishment for a rule that doesn't exist.

Stop listening to them. They're on a wind up and don't know anymore than we do

yeah, I mean that was an incredibly stupid thing to do.