James

I think the Club will say that such an unprecedented sanction can’t possibly be handed out with due process on such an accelerated timeline. Whether that works or not, who knows. I suspect Saints thought they had an assurance this would not be the outcome and have been fucked at the 11th hour and are in shock tbh.

Generational impact is right which is why the club need to stop this silent act and get ahead of what is going on. At the moment there is no communication with fans and it smacks of absolute incompetence. There is a window to stop this turning into an absolute catastrophe for this club, either by throwing every legal piece of resource you can muster in the next 24 hours and hoping for a miracle, or galvanising a fan base to come back stronger and adopt a f*ck you attitude to the EFL and certainly to Middlesbrough Football Club once they get battered by Hull. Neither of those outcomes will be achieved by panicking and saying nothing.

Tonda will have to go for this sadly. It’s an absolutely catastrophic error of judgement from Spors, he was the one pushing for a young and inexperienced manager and this is one of the consequences. He should go as well. The club is clearly run incompetently, how are we in a position where the manager doesn’t know whether his pre match prep is in compliance with league rules? It’s absolutely mind blowing.

The sad thing is, I wouldn’t bank on any of this forming any kind of precedent. The EFL will just continue to make it up as they go along. I hope we raise hell in litigation.

I think that it’s natural to want to disown the situation. I do agree though, how can the club expect us to continue to spend our hard earned on tickets, shirts, beers etc. when what we’ve watched this season was essentially all for nothing. The silence from the club is deafening, they need to say something. I had thought silence projected confidence, more likely at his point sheer incompetence. SR need to go, we need a fresh start away from their chaos.

If the Telegraph report is accurate we have been fucking naive and outdone by a dangerous adversary in Gibson. Heads should roll.

No surprise that their big mate “Gibbo” gets what he wants. It’s clear the man is an utter prick.

100% - either get an injunction to stop the game whilst we get due process or sue the EFL for all they’ve got.

I said that earlier this week and was shouted down. The silence from the club has to stop, we’ve allowed Boro to whip up utter hysteria, there’s no way that hasn’t influenced this supposedly independent panel. Time to fucking fight back.

I also care about the harshness of the sanction. You have elite clubs flouting the rules almost at will and getting nothing more than a slap on the wrist, we have been given one of the harshest punishments in English football, period. Football is fucked, I don’t care what happens from here re this season, that’s done now, I just hope Dragan and co. give the EFL hell from here on out.

Not sure about that. This is a guy that sued and won against the Serbian Government. Doesn’t know anything about football it would seem but knows how to handle himself otherwise.

I am so angry at the club but the sanction that has been imposed on us is absolutely extraordinary. I am past the point of caring whether we play on Saturday, I’m almost certain we won’t. That said, I hope Dragan lawyers up and raises as much hell as possible.

It still doesn’t mean what that Boro idiot thinks it does though 😂

Here comes the last heave ho from the Boro press. I suspect they know decision will come today and we won’t be getting kicked out, hence more desperate and hysterical articles. Hopefully this is all over soon.

They aren’t involved. The EFL rejected their request for them To be party to the proceedings. The reason they are using the media is precisely because they aren’t involved in the actual proceedings. They cannot appeal the decision, the EFL would need to. In order for Boro to get compensation from Saints they would need to sue us in civil court, which is what they did to Derby.

If that was true then every time a club breached the rules, all other league clubs would be compensated. It’s not how it works.

It isn’t how it works at all. This is about the League imposing a sanction on us for (if proven) a breach of a rule. It isn’t about compensating Middlesbrough.

I think Saints could have done a better job of controlling the media. They’ve let the Boro side have a clean run at this and it’s turned into a hysterical pile on. I have a reasonable amount of faith that the panel will comprise people smart enough to not like the outside noise impact their decision but the reaction has gotten completely out of control.

Agree. I actually think that’s the least likely outcome. If this was happening prior to the second leg, maybe. Not once the second leg has taken place.

In case anyone wants the latest from the KFC Forum, they’ve now convinced themselves that we’ve accepted we are out of the playoffs and are now trying to mitigate relegation to League One with a 15 point deduction 😂

I’m kind of tempted to register a complaint against the Telegraph reporter. He’s been writing inaccuracy as fact throughout this process, it was his article that claimed that Salt had professional surveillance equipment when it was an iPhone.

Makes more sense why they’ve been briefing left right and centre.

I’m sure the former Boro employee that was sacked by Southampton Football Club will be completely impartial when preparing his witness statement. Should be heavily discounted or ignored by the Panel in my view.

Also, in case anyone cares Norwich paper has confirmed they aren’t assisting Boro so all that ITK stuff on the Boro forum is BS it seems.

He called for tighter rules but called talk of a touch line ban for Bielsa “disproportionate”. The morality of the conduct is the same and he wasn’t calling for Leeds to get a points deduction or to be thrown out of the league or that the saga was a stain on the club’s reputation. Rules have changed but there are still no set punishments. This time he seems to have decided that the same conduct should carry a fine that is essentially 1000 times larger than that which was levied on Leeds.