trousers

I guess they were hoping that Middlesbrough won and that the issue would then disappear (in terms of the arrangements for the final)....?

Yes, it's irrelevant from the 'due process' point of view, but it's not unreasonable for a football fan to have a view / opinion on how "fair" a punishment is for one offence in comparison to another punishment for a different offence.

Given it's that black and white, and the disciplinary panel aren't able to take into account how much we benefited from it when they make their decision, doesn't it make it even more baffling that the EFL didn't stipulate a default punishment when they first established this new rule...?

Love you too... mwah 😘

Yep, inclined to agree... Anything £5m or below and/or 6 points or below is a "take it on the chin / could've been worse" punishment I reckon (assuming it's a clear cut case of the club knowingly spying within the 72 hour window of course )

Ha! Very good sir 😂

General curiosity question.... If we get fined, say £5m, where does that money end up? EFL donates it to various charities? It trickles down to grass roots football? EFL Board Christmas party? Something else? Genuinely interested.

Cheers 👍🏻 Definitely an insider I would say in that case! Interesting....

Can't you ask them whether they're definitely or possibly an insider...? 😉

Don't think you even need those these days, do you...? 😉

Maybe the subliminal message is: "we beat Boro due to our better fitness levels rather than due to 'Spygate' and we've received word that that's the conclusion the panel will come to..." Or maybe not 😁

Most likely... As I say, just me doing my usual 2 + 2 = 5 hypothesis...

I know I'm prone to reading too much between the lines sometimes, but would the club really be posting a tweet like this today if they thought there was any chance of us getting kicked out...?

Which jouno?

Did we break the rules? Yes, almost certainly What level of sporting advantage did we gain from breaking the rules? Debatable Is the level of punishment determined on what level of advantage we gained? Probably?

Anyone got any ideas on how to celebrate the upcoming 100 page mark?

Is it for us to prove he didn't or the panel to prove he did...?

Maybe they did...?

Doesn't that depend on whether or not the information that Salt gained ended up in front of Tonda and/or his coaching team? Maybe, Salt phoned the club straight afterwards to say he'd been caught and the club's first reaction was: "Shit... Well, at least refrain from telling us what you gleaned so we can at least use that in our defence"...?

As @Lord Duckhunter says, if it really is a simple case of us sending someone up to spy, in the knowledge we were breaking the rules, can we guess why Parsons came out with the following in his statement: "We understand the discussion and speculation that has followed over recent days, but we also believe it is important that the full context is established before conclusions are drawn." If it was as clear cut a breach as people are saying it must be, then there's no "context" to establish, is there? To me, "establishing context" implies it isn't as straightforward as sending someone up there to break the rules, but I guess it might just be a case of: "well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"...?

Yep, that's what I'm leaning towards at the moment, but only if the nutjob 'conspiracy theories' are wide of the mark!

Fair enough

If it's as clear cut as @Lord Duckhunter says it is, I'm surprised it's taking them more than a couple of hours to conclude the bleedin' obvious...

If we were indeed stupid enough to send someone up there, in the knowledge that we were wilfully breaking the rules, with the possibility of being thrown out of the tournament, with relatively little to gain for such a big risk, then I hope they throw the book at us big time. If we were that thick then we deserve all we get.

Indeed...