sadoldgit

Exactly this. There is no deterrent, only punishment.

Did Hull take this?

Perhaps a decision had been made but it has been referred to VAR?

Rockliffe Hall Golf Club?

Is that Will in the hiviz vest?

Another view of Millwall’s training ground. You can see a public road and houses plus a fence that all and sundry can look through.

Did you read FootballMattin’s post?

Accepting the charges was a holding statement. Also it was not an admission of guilt. They made two holding statements which basically said we have received the charges, are looking in to it and will respond accordingly when we have established the facts. Leaking stuff to the media is just as bad as publishing it yourself, in fact it is worse because it is trying to influence the hearing covertly. It could be construed as “cheating.” If you are facing a charge of cheating, what better way to deal with it than being entirely up front and playing by the rules?

Like everyone on this site I have absolutely no idea what happened here so it is all just conjecture. Isn’t possible though that Eckert had no idea about the alleged spying mission? He could have asked the head of analysis for some recent footage of Boro’s free kick routines and let them get on with it. It is also entirely possible that he specifically asked for the latest so do it on Thursday but the fact is we have no idea just what the level his involvement was, so why assume that it is all down to him when we just don’t know at present?

You are not supposed to comment once an inquiry is under way and quite rightly so. Something we have adhered to but Middlesbrough have not. They are more leaky than Donald Trump’s diaper.

Update - apparently Millwall are still using the site near Bromley for 1st team training. Will Salt would have his pick of hundreds of trees to hide behind.

Banned? If there is any banning it will be for a short period and from the touchline I imagine. Proportionality, remember? This really isn’t a major crime.

Millwall had one. I think they have moved out now but up until recently they had a training ground just outside Bromley that used to be Oxo’s sport club. There is a public playing field next to it and it adjoins the old Times sports club where I used to play football. There are woods along the boundary where anyone could wonder in and watch training without being obvious. The Times sports club was sold when Murdoch took over and was eventually knocked down and there is just a field there now where locals walk their dogs. There was nothing stopping you walking through the woods and watching Millwall train.

Sacking him would be ridiculous and isn’t going to happen.

I don’t know. Makers of binoculars, surveillance equipment and iPhones will be queuing up to sponsor us.

What difference does that make? We would have known that he was or was not playing an hour before kick off and could make any amendments to our tactics.

I think this has been said many times. Are we guilty of the two charges, yes or no? If yes, are there any mitigating circumstances that need to be taken into consideration when arriving at the sentence. This is where everything else like lack of proper spying equipment, effect on the outcome etc comes into play.

It didn’t happen unless you were standing by a tree and took a picture of it with your iPhone!

It has, but I think that actually works in our favour if we have something substantial to fight back with. I’m hoping the reason we are keeping our powder dry is because we have a bigger gun than they do. It doesn’t do us any favours to get into a slagging match before the hearing either. Better to be grown up and professional rather than childish and petulant. (Unless Boro get their way in which case I hope Dragan kicks the shit out of that snivelling little bastard “Gibbo”).

Great, then we go after them for defamation of character. They are awarded the first leg 3-0, they get what they want. For ungentlemanly conduct (for trying to influence the hearing and sentence) and defamation we are awarded the second leg 4-0. Job’s a good’un!

Still can’t get my head around this farcical position we have gotten ourselves into. It’s like an episode of Ted Lasso.

Or claim that Will Salt passed on his in depth analysis to Hull as well as us so they had an unfair advantage as well?

One day we will look back on all of this nonsense and laugh. 🤞

This is a completely different situation. We are being charged with breaking two rules made by the EFL. The issue is between us and the EFL. The punishment is there to act as a deterrent and to bring sanctions against a guilty party. That doesn’t mean that the club bringing the action automatically gets something back as recompense. I assume their way forward would be to bring some kind of legal action themselves either against us or the EFL but what chance do you think they would have proving that we gained an unfair advantage against them when looking at both games? They didn’t lose because of any possible law breaking on our part. Why should they get anything out of it?

I think the primary issue is intent. If he was stopped just as he started to “spy” the intent is there. If found guilty, the mitigation case will be based on how much information was actually obtained and passed on and you would expect that the reflect in any punishment passed on.