OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint

I doubt it. On the continent, I don't know but get the impression it's more or less accepted that teams scout other teams. But given the precedent with Bielsa, we know you can be fined if caught in this country so we should have at least told Tonda not to do it.

Exactly. Rules, as my father used to tell me, are for the guidance of the wise but for the obedience of fools. It is illegal to carry a plank of wood along a pavement unless unloading from a vehicle. You can't blindly follow illogical rules. This 72 hour no scouting rule (which is without a specific punishment) is nonsense. Yes we broke it but a good team of lawyers should rip this apart.

So in 2014, France accused Germany of spying on their training session. Makes you think it must be a German thing until you realise the Head Analyst for the World Cup was one Tonda Eckert. Then in 2015 Cologne were caught spying. Their Assistant Manager...Tonda Eckert! While I personally don't see this as such the crime of the century that others do, it does make you think that Tonda should have been given a quick lecture when he joined to say we don't do things like that here. It's highly likely that a lot of people knew what he was doing which might explain why Tonda hasn't departed yet. Can you make a scapegoat of one person?

Surely there is a legal argument to say that with such a conflict of interest, the panel's decision should be voided. And then you look at the EFL Board and lo and behold isn't there a Middlesbrough director? Some comments on this site remind me of Hugh Lawrie in Blackadder. He did us like a kipper, jolly good show. Hey ho... Maybe I'm in denial but I see a minor infringement followed by a stitch up has cost us a shot at promotion. If that's the £200m often quoted, then we should be claiming at least half plus other fallout (eg sponsors leave, if players leave that we would otherwise have kept) Dragan get top money lawyers on the case. Show them you don't mess with Southampton FC.

Don't deny we broke some half arsed rule multiple times but it's time for our media to get on top of this. It was scouting and the punishment dictated by Middlesbrough and excessive. Appreciate entrapment is no defence but it's becoming apparent that we're the ones that have been cheated and need to persue this in the civil courts.

But shouldn't our club make sure the whole football world know what Middlesbrough did? Add to that a dubious panel and this is more that being stitched up. This is surely grounds for a civil case. If I were Dragan, I'd be phoning Man City and ask to borrow some of their lawyers. Literally hundreds of millions could be at stake.

So true. If it had been called 'scouting' from the outset, do we think it would have had the same impact?

They will want to quash this mess as soon as possible. It's up to us to prove we've been cheated out of a chance to premier league football next year. We're not the cheats here. Having a drink with mates in London today, to a person they all said we have been stitched up. We can lie down and take it and put it down to experience, like we did to get expelled from the play offs, or we can seek recompense. I know what I want the SFC hierarchy to do.

And yes this is complete conjecture, but I understood that when this all blew up, young Mr Salt felt like he'd been hung out to dry. His LinkedIn page was deleted which suggests SFC wanted to distance themselves from him. What? I'd be doing the exact opposite. Bring him in closer to the fold. Find out exactly what he's been doing as a junior analyst for the last few months. Who's been advising him and telling him what to do? Does anyone remember the intern that Ashley Cole shot with his pop pop? It made news for a day or two then you never heard of it again. I wonder why. Depending on what Mr Salt says, his financial security could be helped or he could even be introduced to people who would be willing to pay for his story!

Yes, we missed the opportunity yo play in the final but it's not too late to screw the EFL for all they're worth. As I see it, we've been swindled out of a chance of premier league football and we need to make them pay. I see the FA are making their own investigations. They're seriously concerned about what we'll uncover if we do some proper digging. That this type of scouting is rife? That Boro unfairly influenced an 'independent' panel? We should be able to uncover a whole can of worms.

When Gibson is on his death bed, which is when most people tell the truth, and he is asked what has been his greatest achievement, he won't say building up his haulage business, he'll say getting Middlesbrough promoted in 2026. I don't know who I'm more annoyed with. Yes Tonda was wrong, but the way we handled it once the news broke was incompetence of the highest order. We were like rabbits in the headlights of a car...frozen. If I was Dragan, I would get the analysts and media team off their arses and start presenting our case. The BBC's coverage was biased. Look at the comments on the articles and check out where they've come from. I bet it was mass manipulation by Boro. Check out the EFL. What was a Boro member doing on the board? Check out the whistleblower. Who sent Will Salt to the north east? If this turns out to be one huge set up, we need to be adequately compensated. And let's get away from this self flagellation. We broke a half-baked rule but in reality it probably made little difference to any of the games.

But you had to answer it. For those who think that all the secret training for a match is done in the last 72 hours are living in cloud cuckoo land. There's so many other ways to get info on how a team will set up and frankly, if I wanted to do something secret, I wouldn't do it on a field so close to public land or at Eastleigh FC for that matter. Our media team needs to go in to overdrive. It's Middlesbrough that are the cheats. They've cheated their way in to this final. They cheated by their media campaign influencing the decision of an 'independent' panel. Even their manager bawling to the cameras looked fake.

We've all been completely let down by the club but I won't be leaving. It seems watching other teams practice was part of the pre-match preparations. I can't believe just Tonda and an analyst knew it was going on. It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out lots of clubs do it and players know it goes on.

Yes, that molehill at the start was allowed to grow when it should have been stamped on straightaway. Over the last season, I have spent literally thousands of pounds going to home and away games including staying overnight and right now, I feel flat. I don't feel we cheated. Just flat. Yes, we broke the rules, a particularly pathetic rule, but to allow the whole process to be dictated to by bully boys is sheer incompentence. This was trial by media, ignoring processes and we allowed them to get away with it. What next? Is it possible to keep the team together and say, you want to prove to the world that you're the best and capable of promotion fair and square, well stay with us? To leave now would be a rat leaving a sinking ship, you don't want that do you? I hope we can keep the team together but sense if one or two leave, there'll be wholesale departures.

I'd be going further. How can it be perfectly within the rules to watch, film, video a team 73 hours before matchday and then if it's 71 hours you're the vilest cheat on earth. Does a bell go off to say teams you can all do your secret stuff now. The rule is an ass and we need to be making it known in public that we're the ones being cheated. Only one of my mates has texted me to say we were in the wrong, the rest are all saying we have been wronged.

Boro have controlled the narrative from Day One. Where was our media team? Even the BBC site is biased and a quick glimpse of the comments shows it's controlled by Boro fans (or could it be their media team commenting under different guises?). Within 24 hours I have gone from looking forward to another day out to Wembley to not caring two shits whether we're reinstated. We were given the 4 point penalty as a throwaway by the EFL, so we should get that back, but Parson's statement is all about laying the framework for a legal claim. I'm just hoping people are working hard to protect the players and keep as many as they can for next season. I was actually starting to quite like this team and don't want to see them go. I want them to prove we can get promoted fairly.

Wonder if SFC interviewed Will SAlt and found out who sent him up to Boro. Didn't we have a couple of ex-Boro anaylsts on our books. Imagine if one them had sent him up there and then pre warned Boro security that Will was on his way. That could be the rabbit, Trousers, but sadly I think your last statement is the truth.

Two days ago, I for one thought AlexLaw and Lord Duckhunter on this thread were overreacting to the whole situation and scaremongering when they said we could get kicked out. The problem is, if someone in the club doesn't get a grip of this very quickly, it could spiral out of control - I can certainly see sponsors pulling out, players leaving, and that's just the short term.

Yep, I'm guessing there are other clubs keeping very quiet at the moment and hoping this all goes away very quickly.

And would Ipswich really do secret training routines at a club close to and probably closely associated with Southampton FC. The whole thing is a stitch up. Where I worked in the 90's there were signs on some of the office walls: "What's said in here, stays in here." You want secret training. Do it in a hall or where you can guarantee no-one is watching. I'm like the rest of the continent. Watching other clubs training is not cheating. OK, it broke the rules, but where else do you find rules where the punishment isn't stated? And is there a Middlesbrough representative on the EFL board and not a Southampton representative? The impact would have been minimal because there's so much other publicly available stuff on other teams' tactics and set ups. FWIW, I'm guessing the practice was widespread and hopefully there are people who can prove this...and quickly.

This is how I see it too. There's loads of videos to watch to see how the opposition sets up and their style of play. I don't believe for one minute that some secret master plans are worked out on the training ground three days prior to a game. It wouldn't surprise me if watching other clubs train is part and parcel of an analyst's job and yet it is being portrayed as the crime of the century. My concern now is the club emulates Sheff Wed with all the best players leaving apart from one or two ultra loyals (Jack Stephens?). The players need to be brought on side very quickly and told that if they really want something to prove, then next season with us will be the best opportunity.

And surely our players knew what was going on. Or did Tonda waltz in to training and say, I think XXX are going to do this? We have been screwed by the Middlesbrough PR machine. While it seems like we could have sent scouts to other (if not all) games, I'd be talking to analysts seeing if this practice was rife. And why did Oxford, Ipswich not complain at the time. Do clubs hold dossiers on each other to use and the appropriate time?

Think the appeal should be based on:- 1) Was due process followed. Thought we had 14 days to appeal the charge. 2) Proportionality of the punishment to fit the crime. 3) There's the implication that we're not the only club doing this. Is there any evidence.

Totally agree. Although I'm guessing our appeal tomorrow will probably also be pretty pathetic and when we get our four point penalty reduced to two we'll be told justice has been served.

In all this I think Luke Ayling has put it best: "I'm now d-d-d-delighted to be g-g-g-" Yeah, shut up you prick.