There when Franny scored

Worrying Dan thinks that that commentary is in Italian. What are they teaching the youngsters in schools these days!

Fair point, and we did take Stephens from Plymouth academy I think so not like we’re not also guilty of it. Just seems to be getting worse and they are going at such a young age we never even get to see them play for Saints which is a real shame. Same for the lad that went to Lyon.

Take your point, but if he isn’t in an academy already and we spot him, and are prepared to buy his family a house I think that’s fair enough. If City did that I wouldn’t complain because they aren’t taking someone else’s investment at a huge undervaluation (although I say that without knowing what competition we got, if any).

A few will have already seen this: My friend who lives in North Devon knew him well and told me when he moved to Saints he would be phenomenal. I think Saints relocated his whole family even when he was age 11. Apparently he has extraordinary confidence, something like what we see with Bellingham. By all accounts this is a generational talent who in times gone by would have presumably gone through to the first team and been sold for millions. I don’t know how much compensation we will get, but if we can’t bring players through and sell them for huge sums you have to wonder whether the academy model can continue to be successful? This obviously applies to most of the teams in the pyramid as well. Does anyone know if anything is being done about this? I guess not given, as we have seen with Spygate, the elite run football but I’m surprised it doesn’t create more noise!

With the continued mention that the punishment was disproportionate, do we think Saints are gearing up for a Section 68 challenge to the Decision? May he why they have hired Clifford chance if that’s true. Worth a read - https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2026/05/26/op-ed-sir-nicholas-mostyn-kc-soutampton-fc-admiral-byng-is-shot-again/

While I don’t agree with it, this is not great reading, and is written by sensible people for once: https://www.stewartslaw.com/news/spy-games-what-are-the-possible-repercussions-of-the-southampton-v-middlesbrough-play-off-spying-allegations/

Very helpful, thank you. In particular, 91.6

I’m confused. The BBC article said there was no right of appeal to CAS. The EFL press release did mention “consideration of any appeal process if required”. So if we have a contract with the EFL that has an arbitration clause what is the nature of that dispute resolution provision? Presumably this is akin to a multi-tiered dispute resolution process and the tribunal currently appointed are equivalent to the expert determination phase? Arbitrations require a process, most importantly a process to appoint the tribunal, which we haven’t had? So we could apply for interim measure in support of the arbitral process such as an injunction to prevent the play off final taking place as long as no arbitral award had been issued. I agree that once an award has been issued, an English court is not going to give interim measures preventing the enforcement of a valid arbitration award in these circumstances. Does anyone have a copy of the agreement signed with the EFL? Also, normally there is an appeal available or there isn’t. One of the parties to the dispute, I.e. the EFL can’t decide if there’s going to be one, that doesn’t make sense. Can anyone explain this?

Thanks for this, very informative. Other requirements for an emergency injunction that would worry me slightly are the likelihood of success, the full and frank disclosure obligation, and the requirement to provide a cross-undertaking in damages. For an emergency injunction, the “rouge intern” theory would need to be absolutely watertight for both the purposes of the likelihood of success requirement and full and frank disclosure. I’ve been involved in several high court injunction applications, including ex-parte, you can’t risk falling foul of full and frank disclosure in particular.

Apparently no right to appeal to CAS - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c052eznrvvdo?xtor=AL-71-[partner]-[BBC+England]-[headline]-[news]-[bizdev]-[isapi]&at_link_type=web_link&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_link_origin=BBC_Hampshire&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_campaign_type=owned&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_format=link&at_link_id=D7C1D82C-4ED4-11F1-B95F-FA3C12A9A6B4&at_medium=social

Thanks mate

Any news on Hayden Hackney?

Very interesting. Nice to have an informed poster

What a fantastic reply, thank you

With the very heavy rain due tomorrow and the weather warning is there any chance the game could be off? Or am I just being paranoid because this is one of the very rare games I can actually attend!