CSA96

EFL publish full written reasons: https://www.efl.com/news/2026/may/21/efl-statement--written-reasons-relating-to-southampton-fc/

Pretty damning line for Saints on the compliance/admin front in the newest Guardian article: Eckert, who is battling to hold on to his job amid a Football Association investigation into the conduct of individuals at the club, has argued he did not realise what he did was against the EFL’s statutes. Southampton gave a detailed briefing in pre-season to Eckert’s predecessor, Will Still, explaining the competition’s rules. They did not do the same for Eckert after he replaced Still in early November. -- How is a club secretary/compliance manager/other admin staff member not taking a rookie manager through the requirements of his role and the requirements of the competitions he will be leading the team in?

Club announcement on Wembley refunds: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/ticket-refund-process Fans will be returned the price of their ticket, travel packages and any/all booking fees associated with their bookings, with money arriving in bank accounts in the next 10-14 days.

I am assuming both the players and Eckert are likely to have had other meetings going on earlier in the morning...

Sky: Players have a meeting with Eckert at 11am

Yeah, he is out of contract at end of June

Club statement: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/club-statement-20th-may-2026

Can Katharina buy the club back, even just on an interim basis of a year or so to restore some normality and decency to the way the club is run? She was never perpetually embarrassing the fanbase like we have done under SR's lead

The game’s terrible. I’ve tried 3/4 times but it’s just not good and lost a tonne of its immersiveness which was its charm. I’ll give FM27 another try but 26 was barely worth releasing, I’ve spent the whole season carrying on my FM24 saves

Crazy really. He sued Derby for £40m-£45m in 2019 and settled three years later in 2022 for £3m but you'd think he'd won them some sort of king's ransom by the way they bleat on about it

Latest update in the Northern Echo In ordinary circumstances, it could take an independent commission up to a fortnight to publish their judgement along with the written explanations for their findings. Given that the Championship play-off final is due to take place on Saturday, though, the hope is that the verdict in this case will be issued within 24 hours of the hearing taking place. Written conclusions will then be published later in the summer. The judgement will initially be delivered to the two legal teams involved in the case, before being more widely released. Both the EFL, who are effectively mounting a case on Middlesbrough’s behalf, and Southampton, as the defending party, have a right of appeal against the judgement. An appeal would almost certainly mean that Saturday's final would have to be rescheduled.

Squad Cost Rules (SCR) are calculated as... Clubs are allowed to spend 85% of their total revenue on football costs: - Head Coach and Players salaries - Agent fees - Transfer fees (amortised) Excluded from the calculation is: - Women's squad costs - Academy squad costs - Infrastructure costs Club owners are allowed to inject £10m over and above the 85% as an annual equity injection, should they wish.

Yes and the reciprocal agreement between PL/EFL was born out of the fact that they kept running into issues around implementing financial management penalties, rather than specific competition rules

You're right, the charge right now only relates to before the first leg at the Riverside and that's all that is being determined and ruled against at this stage But I think the point that's being made is, if we go in to not contest the charge re: Boro incident as is being reported, but our mitigation is to defend ourselves by saying the analyst(s) went rogue, he wasn't instructed to do this by management, it's not club policy etc, the board are surprised and disappointed at the conduct, then that will all come tumbling down if/when the panel is in possession of solid evidence from Boro via their whistleblower (if that is what they have) They sound suitably confident that their ex-SFC employee's statement/evidence will indicate that actually, the rule breaking inside the club re: spying was systemic and was directed by a person or persons at management level. In that event, we'll be found to be guilty of the first charge of spying at Boro, but more concerningly, our attempt at mitigation will be shown to be a load of shit and then there'll be further charges to follow (and separate legal actions, presumably) based on the fact this would then become a lot bigger than it first appeared As I've said elsewhere in the thread, I am pretty relaxed about the individual charge for the transgression at Boro's training ground. We'll be found guilty and I don't see the EFL removing our right to contest the final based on one transgression, as it would be disproportionate. But the concern should be if Boro do have a smoking gun(s) from the whistleblower with a paper trail up to somebody senior at the club. It's pretty easy to believe a disgruntled ex-employee who left under a cloud might have made copies of exchanges onto personal devices IMO

Re: the photo of the 'spy' It was explained when the story first broke that security staff in the main building spotted him on a CCTV camera and alerted the club photographer, who was out photographing the training session and asked him to get a clearer, front-on shot of the person filming before security staff would approach him, so that if he ran off (and hadn't bought a coffee in Gibson's golf club.. FFS lad) then they would've been able to try and identify him still

Stefan Borson pretty dismissive of the possibility/appropriateness of Boro attending the hearing

There we go

You would assume Middlesbrough wouldn't be telling all and sundry that they have strong evidence and feel confident if that was the case, but then I remember the photo of Inspector Gadget and his high tech surveillance equipment, so who truly knows

That will obviously be considered but if they genuinely do have the receipts in terms of communications from Spors to the analysis team (which he pointed out he was assuming responsibility for when he was appointed) then it's fair evidence