S-Clarke

Sounds like it all came from Tonda, because he 'didn't know it was a rule' in this league. His analyst background from other countries would have probably included this sort of thing as standard, I'm sure other clubs do it all over the world. I do think it's a silly rule in the sense that the '72' hour thing is nonsense and it only applies to the EFL, so in my eyes this punishment is obviously massively disproportionate, but going back to the club it just stinks of incompetence and inexperience from everyone at our club.

You don't show your hand like that though, it was dumb. Keep your cards close to your chest, don't admit anything to the accusers and wait for them to thrash it out independently. It's like a car accident - never admit liability at the scene, never. Let the insurers battle it out.

I read he's going to WHU.

I think the issue here is that further allegations only came to light on Sunday - up to that point, it was just the Boro game in question.

Which backs up my argument that the club shouldn't keep appointing kids with little to no experience, and then surround them with kids with no experience (like Ben Reeves). He's been a bit dumb, everyone has been a bit dumb, but SR should also take the can here.

Exactly this, fans shouldn't be attacking themselves here. Some of us were optimisitc, some of us more worried - but at the end of the day, none of us knew what was going on. We could only hope that the club acted in the best possible way and that our money goes on good, not bad. The fans are the ones who need to rally together here because we've been absolutley shafted in the biggest way I've ever seen in English football.

Seriously, wtf? He wouldn't have done that, would he...? Well, given everything else that goes on here probably. What a fool. He gave Gibson everything he needed.

He has just signed a new 3 year deal at Stoke.

Steve Gibson probably.

We did get really good at corners didn't we.

Then fine the club £100-200m and have them pay it then, don't drag the fans along with it as none of it is our fault.

I don't think that's fair to say at all, the fans have not got what we deserved at all. It's so harsh to say that. None of this is our fault, we're being punished for some stupid kid pricks at our football club who will be of no relevance in a few years - but we'll still be lumbered with it.

Absolutley, no one is saying we didn't break the rules and we had to be punished for doing so. But who is being punished here exactly? Not the club, not the owners - but the fans, who have had no involvement in this. Give the club a massive fine, make SR pay it personally or Tonda or whoever and sack them. But the fans of ALL clubs are being punished here and it feels so unfair to everyone. The club need to release a statement tonight, go to fuck with their internal emails to their staff - talk to the fucking fans, you fucking incompetent pricks.

Given the track record of these clowns in all of their other big decisions, I'm inclined to agree with you. Take everything from the club mouth pieces as a pinch of salt now.

EFL have already confirmed Boro take our place though, that's been communicated. They surely can't change the final line-up AGAIN based upon our appeal, this just feels like posturing by the club to try and get people on side. The usual line of ''We did everything we could'' bollocks.

They'll sell off anyone worth a dollar, cash the money, we'll end up with noddies and struggle in the league. I don't trust anything SR do, they need to go yesterday. We aren't recovering from this any time soon with SR at the helm. This is catastrophic for the entire club. We need a sale, new owners and a new identity because we've been trashed here.

This is the precedent and why our sanctions feel so, so, so out of whack. What we've been hit with is the equivalent of match fixing or fielding ineligible players, it doesn't feel proportonate. I appreciate that the rule wasn't in place when Leeds did it, but it's also not in place in the EPL. I just can't quite get my head around the severity of it, because this punishes the fans of all clubs more than it punishes the club. I'm not downplaying what we've done, I said it above that I'm done with the fuckers - but the EFL are a bit incompetent here. They've allowed us to keep selling tickets up until this afternoon, knowing fans would be arranging travel and accommodation. They've now made this decision which means Boro now have to rush through and arrange accommodation and tickets themselves. And a thought for Hull here too - they've spent the week preparing for us (not spying on us I'll add), but analysing our matches, planning for our shape etc. They've now got to rip up everything they've worked on to focus on Boro with just 2 full training days. The EFL have made an utter mess and it's the fans who suffer, not our incompetent owners. I'm all for accepting punishment for this, but punish the club, punish the individuals. All this does is punish the fans.

I actually feel sorry for THB, he was probably on the side of us fans - totally unaware of what had been going on in the true detail, just thought it was a bit of a misdemeanour at Boro. And now he will have this hanging over his career for ever. The punishment is clearly too severe, but there's nothing we can do about it. The club put us in this place, and we'll forever be known for this - this won't shake off after a summer or 3, it will take decades to re-establish ourselves as a genuine serious football club now. Maybe the outside world can appreciate how incompetent our owners are now.

There will never be a new narrative under these incompetent fuckers. Get them out before we're playing Southern national league.

Who knows, I didn't see them kicking us out at this short notice. They're probably incompetent enough to reinstate us tomorrow.

It throws everything up in the air, the entire league season has been put into disarray. Derby and Wrexham are more than entitled to come forward here, they just missed out on the playoffs. How many clubs are going to be looking at this and thinking....oh, we could have finished in position x had we not been beaten by Southampton. Heck, even Arsenal could argue they may be FA Cup Winners. This isn't just impacting us now, we've pulled the entire season into disarray.

I sadly think it's fairly clear this was systemic now. This mega turn around was no mega turn around. Those games at Charlton and Wrexham feel a bit iffy now.

The punishment should be a multimillion pound fine to Sports Republic, sacking of the indviduals involved. None of this punishes those who have done it. The coaches will probably get another job somewhere, SR will still rake in the money when we sell loads of players in the summer - and what do we get, the fans? Completely fucked over, out of pocket, reputations ruined all because of these charlatans of owners.

I'm done until these fuckers have gone. Everything they touch is a shit show. This is a new low. They've dragged this club through the mud. Get the fuckers out. They don't understand football.

To say I'm shocked by this is an understatement, I'll firstly say I feel the punishment is ridiculous in severity - has there been a heavier punishment in football, ever? (aside from Juventus and maybe Rangers) We haven't killed anyone, we haven't bribed anyone, we haven't partaken in match fixing, we haven't fielded ineligible players. This just feels so harsh in the context of everything else going on, and to come to this decision just 4 days out from the match day shows total disrespect to all fans and players - not just our fans, but Hull's and Boro's too - the EFL released more tickets to us just this morning. I'm not saying we haven't been dumb, we have - more on my disgust with that below, but comparing this against Leeds equal offence and it just feels too extreme to me. I appreciate this spying rule wasn't in place when Leeds admitted the offences, but does this new rule really equal expulsion and a points deduction? It feels as they've tried to make an example out of us, and as we don't have the profile of Leeds or Bielsa they can stamp on us. Onto what we've done, I don't think I can really put into words how disgusted, hurt and betrayed I am by the club I've always supported. I thought it was a one off, a kid going rouge with an IPhone at Boro - embarrassing, noddy for sure, but to then read we've done it on other occasions has just made my blood boil, as this has clearly been systemic which I didn't believe would be the case. I'd suggest those 3 are the tip of the iceberg, this may prompt other clubs to bring things forward. The entirety of 2026 is now fake, including the FA Cup run - I'm sure we can work out why it turned around so dramatically. We had a good team all season, we spent £55m on it - why did we feel we needed to try and glean an extra miniscule advantage against Oxford for example? Is everyone at the club so clueless that they literally needed everything spoon-fed on a platter? Seemingly so, yes. As fans we have spent our money to go and watch this team home and away, put money in the clubs pockets on merchandise and this is what is happening behind all our backs. The poor players have also been caught up in this, guys like THB will be tarnished for years given his celebration in the Semi Final. Think of Leo, such a talented player, ditto Jander. I feel for them because they've put in honest work tactically and been part of an uptick, which has actually turned out to be fake. I now don't trust anything which comes out of the club. I have to say that is yet another sorry Chapter in the life of Sport Republic and our football club. Everything they have been involved in with us has been a disaster, and this is the end of the road now. They need to get themselves out of here ASAP sharpish because we'll have 37,000 fans with pitchforks doing it otherwise.