Saint Pete

Yes, right decision to stick with him in my opinion. And I still think a more sensible ban length of say 6 to 8 games (which is still pretty harsh) we could cope with without getting rid, I'm sure the club knew a ban of some sort was more likely than not. If the worst happens and it's a ridiculously long ban, then I guess what happens next will hinge on appeals process and whether he can still continue while we appeal (if we do). Doesn't mean we have handled the situation well in other ways though.

Let's hope our guys are switched on enough to argue it that way if FA start using the Canada precedent and talking 12 months as if that is fair.

If he gets even a 6 month ban, it seems laughably extreme. It could have the EFL thinking they should review their punishment on the club again, as that starts to look lenient in comparison!

Absolutely. You would say we possibly had the best team in our league and one of the best managers in the 2nd half of the season. So why feel the need to take such a big risk? Crazy.

I think you are being naive if you believe that media and public opinion has no impact or influence at all on scenarios like this. We can all argue about whether the EFL punishment in the club was correct and proportionate (quite possibly there is a good argument it was) but the massive OTT furore that blew up around what happened I believe would have at the least emboldened the EFL panel that the option of throwing us out and giving us a points penalty was not going to provoke a furious negative reaction in the media. Think about how it might have played out if it wasn't little old Southampton in the dock but a much bigger fish with more fingers in the media pie. I suspect you would have seen much more public push back about how the offence was quite tinpot and almost comical in comparison to other cheating in the sport, with many useful pundits/ex players etc coming out to pressure the EFL saying it would be a ludicrous overreaction to go as far as expelling us. I'm not saying it would have been right if that had influenced them, but it certainly would have put in their minds that they may face a media backlash afterwards. Why do you think bigger clubs often get more lenient punishments than the smaller ones, it's a combination of PR/influence and the greater fear of litigation from richer clubs. Whether using the media at this late stage could have any impact on the Tonda outcome is another matter, it depends on what is happening today. If today is purely about giving him his punishment, it's too late, but if it's true the final decision's not coming out until later, maybe even after International break, we could still be doing more to push back in media about what a sensible proportionate punishment should look like.

Let's hope this rumour of 6 months is bullshit, would be utterly ludicrous if that's what he gets, but nothing would surprise me at this point. With the bellends coming out again in the press and social media calling for him to be hung, drawn and quartered, I can't help feeling the club should have been far more forthright in the last couple of weeks making a vocal argument that there's no way that severe a punishment would even be on the table if it was a bigger, more "fashionable" club (even a West Ham, Spurs, Leeds, etc).

I don't disagree at all with putting our point of view out there before the final hearing and verdict, and trying to use the press and social media to help us for once. But having decided to do it, he wasn't anywhere near forceful enough and I don't think just saying "don't ban him because it will hurt us more and by the way, we have had lots of legal costs" can be considered coming out fighting. He needed to put much more meat on the bones of why our punishments so far (and by extension further bans on Tonda) should be considered disproportionate in comparison with equivalent or worse wrongdoing by other clubs and individuals, particularly those in bigger clubs. The small vs big clubs disparity I think would have generated more of a debate in the media and potentially more people coming out on our side to pressure the FA a bit, which surely was the aim of doing the interview?

I thought he'd been sidelined when it was Dragan who came out and did the end of season press stuff, but sadly it seems not.

Fair enough, can see the logic. Just thought it was odd that they made no acknowledgement that anything other than Boro being advanced to the final after losing was even discussed. As Egg just pointed out, it makes no difference to us anyway, the key decision was the punishment of expulsion.

I wa surprised there wasn't more made of that in the press after we were expelled, especially from the Wrexham point of view as the 7th placed team. It was as if the EFL did not even acknowledge any other possibility than Middlesbrough taking our place in the final. Of course the EFL didn't want to delay the final, but I think Wrexham could have argued strongly that they should have at least considered the possible alternative of promoting them into the play-offs to take our place in some way.

Yes, and that's what we should be focusing on in our media strategy and Tonda's defence, not blaming other clubs or whining about our legal costs etc.

He talks with a lot of common sense and knowledge. Do you think he fancies a job back in football as a CEO of a Championship club? I would certainly have felt a lot more confident about our response to what's happened if someone like him was driving it and putting our case.

The thing is though, we can all get as angry and indignant with Boro's involvement in the affair as we like, but what you have said above also highlights again how monumentally stupid and naive those involved at our club were. So, at some point, Tonda or someone else on the staff decided to sanction these activities against EFL rules and all of our analyst team including a young analyst formerly from one of our rivals were aware of this. They then allow that analyst who has that knowledge to return to our rival, and not only do we continue to do that activity against the rules but we decide it's a good idea to do it against the same club that young analyst has gone back to before our most crucial match of the season. Did those involved not think at any point that this may be a little too risky and not worth the minimal advantage it might gain us? At the end of the day, whilst Boro have certainly done all they can to benefit from the situation, no one held a gun to the head of our employees to make them do these stupid things. There's no point in complaining about Boro at this point in my opinion as it won't help us, better to focus on arguing about what is a suitable and fair punishment for the FA to impose in comparison to bigger clubs who have committed worse cheating to gain far bigger advantages and received more lenient punishments.

The problem there was we were stupid enough to do it in both the main season and the play offs and then get caught. So the EFL interpretation was to chuck us out of play offs for the Boro offence, but that they also needed to punish us for the league games and as it was too late to do that in last season, the points deduction was rolled forward. Not saying I agree with it (the play off expulsion was too harsh in my opinion) but that is the reasoning they used. Agree with you completely over the ridiculous length of time the FA have taken, I can't see any justification for why it shouldn't have been done and dusted well before the start of the season.

I don't disagree the EFL punishment on the club was very harsh, I would argue over the top and out of proportion to what happened and the sporting impact. But the FA will always answer your question by saying their role is to discipline the individual not the club and Tonda has not been punished personally for what he did yet. So, I don't think we will get very far arguing that they shouldn't be punishing him/us again. Our only real avenue is to push the FA more on what a proportionate and reasonable punishment for what he did and the sporting impact of it should be. That's why I think we should have used the Parsons interview more to argue that there shouldn't be a disparity between how heavily smaller clubs like us and their staff are punished for breaking the rules compared to bigger clubs like Chelsea. And to point out that the FA cases brought against those bigger clubs had a far more significant sporting impact than what Tonda and the kid with the phone did. I personally think that argument would have gained more support in the press, which in turn might have helped make the FA or their panel think again about imposing another very harsh penalty on Thursday.