S-Clarke

Wishing you all the best Whitey - sorry to hear of what you're going through.

Hopefully these lawyers are no win no fee.

This is the same EFL who approved the takeover of that guy at Wigan, who bought the club, only to dump them into administration, and then promptly did over Wigan again by docking them loads of points. Wigan are now forever a lower league team because of it. Clueless bunch.

Depends how much said clubs will pay the FA/EFL to keep it on the hush though, as let's be fair - that's all it will come down to at the end of the day. Nothing is about sporting fairness or what's best for the fans, it's all about money, money, money.

It does stink because the punishment we've got is almost word for word what Boro wanted, which they even 'requested' on their website a few days ago. And somehow, lots of Boro ITK's seemed to know this was going to happen in the run up as well. The whole thing stinks top to bottom. No one comes out of this smelling of roses.

Wouldn't it be a plot twist if originally, when this whistle-blower was at Boro before he joined us, he was actually spying on us - so we employed him to protect ourselves so he didn't share anything with other clubs. That would be the ultimate mic drop moment in footballing history. So, so, far fetched, but this has all been far fetched.

I wouldn't blame Hull City at all, or Wrexham for that matter. Lots will have a case. This will be a mess that will not be over in a week, or two, or 10. Is there also a possibility that this just opens an entire avalanche of worms? and other clubs, and ourselves, start presenting evidence of other cheating activities which we've just kept on the low down up until this point? Who knows. It all feels a mess, the EFL have just fucked it in my eyes for every fan. Which they always do. Look at their incompetence with their fit and proper persons tests, the bloody morons.

It's a good statement, we all wanted one, so they put it out there. Apologies prevalent in it too, which is the least we can do. We've finally held our hands up in public. The arguments we've put forward regarding the proportions are fair, I think we all agree. But the reasoning around why feels a little woolly. I hope our case is stronger than that.

Staggering really. I'd be stunned if there was any training today, or if the manager was there. Interesting if that is the views of the players re: Tonda, you can imagine how totally let down they all feel. Some of them have put their careers on the line, THB with his jokey celebration, Downes coming out praising Tonda for knowing everything about teams before the game etc. I just feel like their names could be dragged through the mud, like us fans, without any wrongdoing on our part. This is a flaming mess. I've never seen anything like this in my life.

That's how I see it really, we've been hit by twice as they want to class the playoffs as a cup competition - but they're including games from the league in the evidence pack for that charge, so it's a bit all over the shop from the EFL. Whatever happens I'm properly ashamed though, you can say we didn't gain an advantage because Boro didn't take their chances, but the intent was there - that's the thing. We didn't go there for fun, we went there with the intent to get some inside information that could aid our result. I'm fairly certain we've done this multiple times and in games we've won. I don't think this goes away any time soon, this is an absolute quagmire which will stretch the entire league and I think the EFL are making it more of one that they needed to.

The fact they've got the exact outcome they asked for on their website stinks.

Basically, if you look at it that way, we have been charged with spying 3x times. Oxford, Ipswich and Boro. The Boro one in isolation has had the potential to impact Boro, fair. But the other two haven't impacted Boro. The punishment is essentially a £250m fine for us, and a potential £250m reward for Boro. Whilst anyone else implicated is ignored and Hull are dragged through the mire too. Make that make sense.

I mean own up to the fans, hold their hands up to the fans, apologise etc. They've not publicly owned up to anything, apart from Parsons in the fricking boardroom at Boro. I still can't get over that bit.

Yeah that's absolutely the longer term goal, but in the short-term they won't be able to sell us overnight - so just own it and then fuck off is my feeling.

It's a good point! But wasn't the argument made at the time that the fans shouldn't suffer, they didn't choose the owners, they didn't spend the money etc etc. The points deductions were enough. But it's the same argument here. We didn't chose our owners, we didn't decide to spy and we weren't part of any WhatsApp groups.

I can't imagine they will own up or apologise to us. What we'll get is some waffle statement about how we feel the punishment is unjustified, and how we will seek further legal advise. We advise all fans to continue checking the OS for updates etc etc etc. If the appeal fails, the best thing for this club to do would be to apologise and just draw a line in the sand. A big video piece on the OS with Dragan and everyone else, outlining how we shouldn't have done this, what is being put in place to stop it again, and how they will be reimbursing the fans for all this nonsense. Let our local journos get unlimited access to everyone and provide a big apology to the clubs involved too. That's the only way we can play it if we wanted to try and get people back on side, and 'try' to recover ourselves after this charade.

Because they're incompetent.

And that's why it feels unproportionate. Is a 4 point deduction in the league, the equivalent of being kicked out of a single £250m game? I'd suggest no. You can make up a 4 point deduction, it's a pain, it may harm you but you can try and make it back. But you can't make up an expulsion, this result doesn't just harm the club now - it harms it for many, many years to come financially. We should have been fined for the build up to the playoff incident, quite a heavy amount, and ordered to pay compo to Boro with further staff sanctions. And then taken a point deduction on the chin for those incidents in the season. It would have still thrown Saturday into chaos with probably an interim coach in charge, but it would have been a neater outcome than all of this. The 'kicked out' compared with -4 points, for the same event, feels too extreme - unless we did worse to Boro which we don't truly know about yet.

I will always stand by the opinion that the EFL have made a right royal mess of this. Like you say, they should have paused the 1st game - or at the very least, the 2nd game. Do this 'quick' deliberation they did, let us appeal, and then we know. If we're kicked out, the team who finish 7th get a crack in a 2nd leg at 0-0 against Boro. By letting it drag on to just 3 days before the game is incompetence on par with our morons. Giving Boro a free ride to the final feels unfair in the context of everything.

Yeah, the atmosphere at Wembley, the craziness at Leicester and the atmosphere at home to Arsenal were fricking amazing. Felt great to be part of all this again. But now it all feels so sour, appeal or no appeal. Can't get over that.

I'm not going to predict anything at this point, this has been so unprecedented we simply have no idea. Look at yesterday, we were still selling tickets at lunchtime - so you cannot predict any outcome at this stage. My best guess is that it won't be overturned, but I didn't see them expelling us at that notice yesterday either.

We shouldn't have sent him out on loan, we could have just sent him out as the spy instead. One way to have got rid of him. Small enough to be hidden behind a tree, he may have dropped the IPhone though.

A fair view from a Boro fan - doesn't feel they should be rewarded, just give it to Hull. I don't say I disagree, it would probably feel a bit odd for Hull - but they got there fair and square by beating a strong Millwall side. Hull/Wrexham/Derby/Millwall being punished whilst Boro rewarded. The legal quagmire this will open is going to be huge.

Yep, every single part of this has been a shit show. What we did, Boro's unfair reinstatement, the EFL it's on, it's off, it's on, this time, that time nonsense. Our defence, our communication on the matter - etc etc. It's all an absolute mess from everyone.

Apparently according to Talk Sport (I know, I know), the hearing yesterday wasn't undertaken by legal people - just an independent football commissioning panel who plucked some footballing sanctions out of the air, with zero legal thought. So today's appeal will have legal people around the table for the first time. Absolutely no idea how this ends.