Spygate 2026

[Harry_SFC]

34 minutes ago, Gary R76 said:

Does anybody think the FA appeal the decision

I doubt they will. I'm not sure how much it's in their interests to keep this going on for any longer, especially given we've already received plenty of other punishments. 

[obelisk]

3 hours ago, egg said:

I've let AI spell it out simply

Give it a rest.

[egg]

10 minutes ago, Jimmy_D said:

AI is programmed to tell you what you want to hear. It's still an utterly ridiculous proposition to state that a defendant can affect their own punishment by offering options of how they could be punished.

You're very wrong on this. The club were not "defendants" as per a criminal case. They were responding to a disciplinary tribunal. It's an entirely different forum, and it's standard in that environment to propose a sanction. 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by egg

[obelisk]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

There's little point discussing something that I'm well aware of with people who aren't.

Says someone who asks a computer to tell them what to think.

[BarberSaint]

6 hours ago, LordHester said:

Yeah, I'm with you on this one; I don't know how many cases in which it's for the defendant to offer up a range of punishments from which to choose. 

Wasn't that the third chance? First automatics, second play-offs (lost in the semi), third reinstated in the final.

[LordHester]

3 hours ago, egg said:

For those somehow confused by this, I've let AI spell it out simply. The last para summarises. 

Your reading of the situation is incredibly accurate and highlights exactly how the strategic decisions made during a defense can inadvertently trap a tribunal into a binary choice. [1]

In the high-profile Southampton FC "Spygate" case before the EFL Independent Disciplinary Commission, Southampton's legal counsel took a high-stakes "all-or-nothing" approach. By fiercely arguing that they gained zero sporting advantage from spying on Oxford United, Ipswich Town, and Middlesbrough, they maintained that any sporting sanction would be completely disproportionate. 

 

Consequently, their legal team pushed exclusively for a financial penalty and a formal reprimand (pointing heavily to the £200,000 fine Leeds United received for a similar incident in 2019). [1, 2, 3]

This creates a major tactical vulnerability before a panel, resulting in several key dynamics:

 

1. The Binary Trap

Because Southampton did not offer a realistic middle-ground alternative (such as a suspended points deduction, a heavier standard point deduction for the following season, or localized stadium bans), they left the Independent Disciplinary Commission with a steep fork in the road: 

• Accept the respondent’s view that no sporting advantage occurred and issue a purely financial fine.
• Accept the EFL’s view that sporting integrity was heavily compromised and issue a severe sporting sanction (expulsion from the Play-Offs). 

 

2. The Danger of Over-Mitigating

When a respondent’s alternative is perceived as too lenient for the severity of the admitted rule breaches, tribunals often reject it outright. Once the Disciplinary Commission officially ruled that obtaining confidential training data inherently constitutes a sporting advantage (regardless of the match results), Southampton’s proposed financial-only penalty became legally incompatible with the panel's findings. [1]

 

3. Contrasting Strategy: The FA vs. Tonda Eckert Hearing

We can see the exact opposite strategy used to great success by Southampton manager Tonda Eckert during his individual Football Association (FA) hearing. [1, 2]

When the FA demanded a massive nine-month ban from all football activities, Eckert's legal team actively suggested alternatives. They argued against the full ban, putting forward a financial penalty or a touchline/stadium ban as a middle ground. While the commission rejected those exact options, the act of engagement and providing immense mitigation allowed them to heavily slice down the punishment to a six-week ban that was entirely suspended. [1, 2]

Ultimately, Southampton’s club-level defense failed because they gambled on convincing the panel that a multi-million-pound playoff spot shouldn't be governed by a sporting penalty. By leaving no realistic "sporting middle ground" on the table, they handed the EFL commission the pen to write the ultimate sanction themselves.

Seriously, offering up AI as definitive proof of anything is a mis-step.

[trousers]

1 hour ago, Gary R76 said:

Does anybody think the FA appeal the decision

I guess a more pertinent question is... If the FA did want to appeal, what's the deadline for them doing so...?

[obelisk]

2 minutes ago, trousers said:

I guess a more pertinent question is... If the FA did want to appeal, what's the deadline for them doing so...?

If they went by the EFL dodgy process they'd already be out of time.

[Lymington Saint]

Given the pressure that he has been under, Eckert comes across as one tough cookie.  Many lesser people would have cracked.  Can see us kicking on from here now that this is all over.

[Cuddles]

12 minutes ago, trousers said:

I guess a more pertinent question is... If the FA did want to appeal, what's the deadline for them doing so...?

That 70s dude from the echo said 7 days from yesterday, but it is unlikely they'd appeal as the grounds to do so aren't really relevant.

[St Chalet]

The club got turned over, the players backed Tonda, Tonda got off lightly, We March On.

[egg]

30 minutes ago, LordHester said:

Seriously, offering up AI as definitive proof of anything is a mis-step.

I couldn't be arsed to type out a long explanation. The simple point is that in a sports disciplinary panel or tribunal an option needs setting out, and we didn't offer one. If people want to believe that our approach was correct, and that we were stitched up by an iffy panel, that's a matter for them, but the reality is that we didn't help ourselves. It's academic anyway, and fortunately we got our ducks in a row for the FA process. 

[egg]

51 minutes ago, obelisk said:

Says someone who asks a computer to tell them what to think.

Ha!! Far from it. I was baffled by the confusion, not so much from you, but form others, so used the lazy way to give some detail. 

You're free to do your own research if you remain confused. 

As above, it's academic anyway, and the EFL may well have expelled us however we approached it, but we approached it badly. 

 

[obelisk]

4 minutes ago, egg said:

If people want to believe that our approach was correct, and that we were stitched up by an iffy panel, that's a matter for them, but the reality is that we didn't help ourselves

I can agree that we didn't help ourselves but that might be because nobody took it seriously at the start, not even Gibbo and his mates. It's perfectly possible to believe both that our approach was amateurish and that we were stitched up while also thinking that the whole saga was a mountain built from a molehill. The FA panel even agreed that the EFL were played.

[aintforever]

The idea that if Saints had handled it differently they wouldn’t have been kicked out the play-offs is just nonsense IMO. We were caught red handed, the EFL would have made the same decision regardless of how we acted afterwards.

[VectisSaint]

1 hour ago, Gary R76 said:

Does anybody think the FA appeal the decision

I seriously doubt it. I'm fairly sure that they would not have released the commission findings if they had intended to appeal. They probably consider the commission has got them off the hook. 

[sadoldgit]

For me, the bottom line in all of this sorry saga is that the independent panel applied common sense and proportionality to the situation we put ourselves in and it is a great shame that the EFL didn’t do the same.

[Lighthouse]

13 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

For me, the bottom line in all of this sorry saga is that the independent panel applied common sense and proportionality to the situation we put ourselves in and it is a great shame that the EFL didn’t do the same.

The EFL punishment was proportionate, they were never going to let us benefit from cheating. No amount of claiming that spying doesn't affect what happens on the pitch and whataboutery will change that. 

[Ted Bates Statue]

11 hours ago, egg said:

I couldn't be arsed to type out a long explanation. The simple point is that in a sports disciplinary panel or tribunal an option needs setting out, and we didn't offer one. If people want to believe that our approach was correct, and that we were stitched up by an iffy panel, that's a matter for them, but the reality is that we didn't help ourselves. It's academic anyway, and fortunately we got our ducks in a row for the FA process. 

I think I see what you mean, basically we should have proposed that we'd contest the play-off final without Tonda and exclude him ourselves. As you suggest, it's totally hypothetical now and chances are they might well have rejected the offer. But it might have been just enough to have kept us in the competition.

[trousers]

7 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

The EFL punishment was proportionate

I disagree

[sadoldgit]

8 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

The EFL punishment was proportionate, they were never going to let us benefit from cheating. No amount of claiming that spying doesn't affect what happens on the pitch and whataboutery will change that. 

We will have to agree to disagree about the proportionality of the EFL’s sanctions.

[Lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

We will have to agree to disagree about the proportionality of the EFL’s sanctions.

Your idea of 'proportionate' implies a punishment where you have a net gain relative to the offence you have committed. I.e. We cheated to win the playoff semi final, we should be allowed to keep that and given a punishment which comes up short in comparison. A bit like saying the punishment for robbing a bank is that you have to give back half the swag you steal. It's not a punishment and there's no reason not to keep doing it.

 

Needless to say your opinion (and that of many other Saints fans) would completely flip if it had been the Skates caught doing this.

[saintant]

3 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Your idea of 'proportionate' implies a punishment where you have a net gain relative to the offence you have committed. I.e. We cheated to win the playoff semi final, we should be allowed to keep that and given a punishment which comes up short in comparison. A bit like saying the punishment for robbing a bank is that you have to give back half the swag you steal. It's not a punishment and there's no reason not to keep doing it.

 

Needless to say your opinion (and that of many other Saints fans) would completely flip if it had been the Skates caught doing this.

Opinions, other than your own, are available.

[Turkish]

27 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

The EFL punishment was proportionate, they were never going to let us benefit from cheating. No amount of claiming that spying doesn't affect what happens on the pitch and whataboutery will change that. 

You're trying to be the Henry Winter of saintsweb aren't you Lighthouse.

[SW5 SAINT]

23 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

The EFL punishment was proportionate, they were never going to let us benefit from cheating. No amount of claiming that spying doesn't affect what happens on the pitch and whataboutery will change that. 

Teams/football clubs benefit from cheating every weekend and nothing is done about it. It’s debatable whether trying to ascertain another teams tactics, starting line up etc is cheating. I’m sure teams/clubs go to all sorts of efforts to find out. The FA panel findings seem to assess Tonda’s misdemeanour as trivial….

[trousers]

4 minutes ago, Turkish said:

You're trying to be the Henry Winter of saintsweb aren't you Lighthouse.

Lighthouse? A contrarian? Can't see how you come to that conclusion... 

#itsjustdifferentopinions,innit

Edited 9 hours ago by trousers

[Saint86]

39 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

The EFL punishment was proportionate, they were never going to let us benefit from cheating. No amount of claiming that spying doesn't affect what happens on the pitch and whataboutery will change that. 

It very clearly wasn't.

A young lad went down to a training ground a day later than he was meant to, stood the wrong end of it with a crappy mobile phone (not professional spy equipment, not disguised in boro training gear), and all to try and see if Hayden Hackney was fit - and came away with the mistaken impression that he was. (Its up to you whether you accept the narrative that Boro were tipped off with they're former employee that we sacked, that whistle-blew to the EFL about being bullied, and who now once again works at Middlesbrough)... 

We then played Middlesbrough away under an almighty media shit storm, the club scrambling around trying to figure out how to respond, and the boro fans whipped up into a frenzy. Unsurprisingly, we got absolutely played off the park. So no sporting advantage obtained.

Home game, we were still wrestling with the ever growing media frenzy going on off the field. I think its genuinely impressive that Eckert managed to deliver that playoff win with the pressure and scrutiny he was under.  I think its a fairly safe statement to say that no team will ever win a 2-legged playoff semi (already a highly pressured occasion) under that level of pressure. Regardless of the mess he caused, Tonda's mental toughness and focus is beyond question for me.

Regardless, the sanction imposed is of similar magnitude to expulsion from the premier league - because lets be blunt, we were at least 70% favorites to beat Hull. It was a ridiculously OTT sanction that was only became plausible because of the shocking way we handled the whole affair - like meek lambs to the slaughter allowing the rhetoric to ramp up and up and up.

So yes, we did break the 72hour rule ("cheat"). But there are levels to cheating. Clearly, even a multi million pound fine and suspended points deduction was a more appropriate sanction - which is more akin to Chelsea's sanction for a far more egregious offence.

Ayling trying to get Harwood Bellis sent off for made up slurs (and then cuddling him after the game) would have been a far more impactful level of cheating. Ditto someone diving for a penalty.

You've been gaslit if you think what happened to saints was proportionate. 

Edited 9 hours ago by Saint86

[sadoldgit]

18 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

Your idea of 'proportionate' implies a punishment where you have a net gain relative to the offence you have committed. I.e. We cheated to win the playoff semi final, we should be allowed to keep that and given a punishment which comes up short in comparison. A bit like saying the punishment for robbing a bank is that you have to give back half the swag you steal. It's not a punishment and there's no reason not to keep doing it.

 

Needless to say your opinion (and that of many other Saints fans) would completely flip if it had been the Skates caught doing this.

There are different levels of cheating therefore it follows that there should be different levels of sanctions. This idea that “cheating” is the be all and end all is completely flawed.

As for the skates or anybody else, if they had done what we did my view would be no different. It really wasn’t a big deal, no matter how much you like to pretend it was.

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, trousers said:

Lighthouse? A contrarian? Can't see how you come to that conclusion... 

#itsjustdifferentopinions,innit

Got to get the daily post count up by any means necessary those curry nights won’t pay for themselves 

 

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, sadoldgit said:

There are different levels of cheating therefore it follows that there should be different levels of sanctions. This idea that “cheating” is the be all and end all is completely flawed.

As for the skates or anybody else, if they had done what we did my view would be no different. It really wasn’t a big deal, no matter how much you like to pretend it was.

Good lord, I agree with SOG

[tdmickey3]

6 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

There are different levels of cheating therefore it follows that there should be different levels of sanctions. This idea that “cheating” is the be all and end all is completely flawed.

As for the skates or anybody else, if they had done what we did my view would be no different. It really wasn’t a big deal, no matter how much you like to pretend it was.

 

4 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Good lord, I agree with SOG

One for the Golden Post award surely?

[Sunglasses Ron]

The EFL punishment was ludicrous.

They should have intervened immediately, awarded Middlesbrough a 1-0 win for the home game plus the 4 points for the two other instances of spying and that would have been that.  Tonda could then have been dealt with in a slightly harsher way (i.e. 3 month ban).

That would have been much more proportionate all-round and would have had far less impact on innocent parties like the players and fans.

[Lord Duckhunter]

3 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

Clearly, even a multi million pound fine and suspended points deduction was a more appropriate sanction - which is more akin to Chelsea's sanction for a far more egregious offence.

A fine isn’t a sporting sanction. The whole punishment revolves when 2 points. One that the play offs are a separate tournament to the league & two a sporting punishment was appropriate, unless we successfully argued against those points, we were always fucked once the second league was played. 
 

As for Chelsea, they went to the authorities and reported themselves. Had we gone to the EFL & said we’ve found out our manager has authorised spying on Boro, & we’ve sacked him on the spot, the EFL would probably have shown some leniency. We didn’t, we lied to them & tried to claim it was a “lone wolf” operation. 
 

Don’t forget the FA panel did ban Tonda, so they did take the offence seriously. It was suspended because of various mitigation, most of which wasn’t present when the EFL panel sat. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

4 minutes ago, Sunglasses Ron said:

They should have intervened immediately, awarded Middlesbrough a 1-0 win for the home game 

The standard sanction is 3-0, but you are agreeing with the EFL panel that a sporting sanction was appropriate. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Sunglasses Ron]

11 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The standard sanction is 3-0, but you are agreeing with the EFL panel that a sporting sanction was appropriate. 

Yes, it was, just.

[rallyboy]

I think most fans accept that we stupidly cheated and should have been proportionately punished.

The fact that Steve Gibson publicly used his position at the EFL to clearly influence proceedings while running an aggressive media campaign that has now been exposed by the FA as semi-truths, all so he could hijack the narrative to reward Middlesbrough rather than punish Saints, that's more the issue...

 

[Fabrice29]

35 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

It very clearly wasn't.

A young lad went down to a training ground a day later than he was meant to, stood the wrong end of it with a crappy mobile phone (not professional spy equipment, not disguised in boro training gear), and all to try and see if Hayden Hackney was fit - and came away with the mistaken impression that he was. (Its up to you whether you accept the narrative that Boro were tipped off with they're former employee that we sacked, that whistle-blew to the EFL about being bullied, and who now once again works at Middlesbrough)... 

 

You know you're not allowed to do this right? Doesn't matter how young the lad is, where he's stood or how good his mobile phone is, it's not allowed. And btw, if you actually read the commission report they are pretty dismissive of any attempt to pretend it's not a big deal. If you want to actually understand why this commission ended up settling on a suspended ban then it's pretty clearly explained why in the report and very easy to understand. But it will involve you having to row back on your opinion that the EFL had all the same context and information available to it that this commission did and just decided to flip the coin the otherway instead.

[saintant]

2 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

You know you're not allowed to do this right? Doesn't matter how young the lad is, where he's stood or how good his mobile phone is, it's not allowed. And btw, if you actually read the commission report they are pretty dismissive of any attempt to pretend it's not a big deal. If you want to actually understand why this commission ended up settling on a suspended ban then it's pretty clearly explained why in the report and very easy to understand. But it will involve you having to row back on your opinion that the EFL had all the same context and information available to it that this commission did and just decided to flip the coin the otherway instead.

Whatever the rights and wrongs (and I agree we broke the rules) there was a distinct shortage of time for the EFL case due to the pending final at Wembley. I'm not sure what could have been done because clearly the final had to go ahead on the scheduled day but this meant the case was rushed through which was not ideal for the prosecution or the defence.

[SfcPhil]

17 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

A fine isn’t a sporting sanction. The whole punishment revolves when 2 points. One that the play offs are a separate tournament to the league & two a sporting punishment was appropriate, unless we successfully argued against those points, we were always fucked once the second league was played. 
 

As for Chelsea, they went to the authorities and reported themselves. Had we gone to the EFL & said we’ve found out our manager has authorised spying on Boro, & we’ve sacked him on the spot, the EFL would probably have shown some leniency. We didn’t, we lied to them & tried to claim it was a “lone wolf” operation. 
 

Don’t forget the FA panel did ban Tonda, so they did take the offence seriously. It was suspended because of various mitigation, most of which wasn’t present when the EFL panel sat. 

I think these are the points people are missing. If we'd done it before a league game, it would've been a 3 point deduction (2 on appeal with mitigation as per our punishment in the summer) but because the play-offs are seen as a knock-out competition, expulsion had to be the only punishment on the table. They were never going to delay/cancel the play-off final. We were hoping to comply and get a softer punishment due to time restraints, basically trying to force the EFL's hand towards a lenient conclusion.

If this had happened before an EFL or FA Cup game, we'd have been kicked out the competition, like when a team fields an eligible player for example.

We messed up, and the media circus from Boro was a joke, but we were handed the right punishment in my opinion. Parsons even said himself if the shoe was on the other foot, he couldn't say that we wouldn't have reacted the same as Boro did. We gave them an opportunity and they took it.

At least we can finally emerge from the cloud of uncertainty which we've been under the last few months.

[hypochondriac]

Being honest about it I think we probably couldn't have done what we did and been allowed to potentially just win the final and get promoted. It would have caused a shitshow. I don't agree with many of the conclusions and aggravating factors in the EFL conclusions and I don't agree with the points deductions for this season. 

Edited 9 hours ago by hypochondriac

[Fabrice29]

4 minutes ago, saintant said:

Whatever the rights and wrongs (and I agree we broke the rules) there was a distinct shortage of time for the EFL case due to the pending final at Wembley. I'm not sure what could have been done because clearly the final had to go ahead on the scheduled day but this meant the case was rushed through which was not ideal for the prosecution or the defence.

Obviously none of it was ideal but anyone pretending that a suitable punishment would have been one that involved us continue to be given the opportunity to get out of the league that was trying to punish us is having a shocker.

[skintsaint]

5 minutes ago, SfcPhil said:

If we'd done it before a league game, it would've been a 3 point deduction (2 on appeal with mitigation as per our punishment in the summer) but because the play-offs are seen as a knock-out competition, expulsion had to be the only punishment on the table.

Indeed, it was in the FA notes the other day that it would have been a 2 point deduction if a league game. 

[Tamesaint]

7 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Being honest about it I think we probably couldn't have done what we did and been allowed to potentially just win the final and get promoted. It would have caused a shitshow. I don't agree with many of the conclusions and aggravating factors in the EFL conclusions and I don't agree with the points deductions for this season. 

The FA would not have suspended Tonda's ban if  by some chance we had been promoted via the play off final. We would now be sitting in the (bottom half?) PL trying to sort out a Lallana / Garner leadership or a new manager.

[The Kraken]

 

1 minute ago, Tamesaint said:

The FA would not have suspended Tonda's ban if  by some chance we had been promoted via the play off final. We would now be sitting in the (bottom half?) PL trying to sort out a Lallana / Garner leadership or a new manager.

Not sure I understand the logic. The FA wanted a longer punishment for Tonda. They were reigned in on that by their independent commission. Why would the commission act different if we were in the Premier League?

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

The FA would not have suspended Tonda's ban if  by some chance we had been promoted via the play off final. We would now be sitting in the (bottom half?) PL trying to sort out a Lallana / Garner leadership or a new manager.

We probably would have got relegated and the other one got a bigger points deduction next season when we were back in the championship.

[badgerx16]

If it had come to light after the Oxford game, what would a proportionate punishment have been ?

Points deduction ? Touchline ban for Tonda ? 

Once we were in the playoffs certain sanctions, such as an immediate points deduction, were off the table.

[Fabrice29]

14 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

 

Not sure I understand the logic. The FA wanted a longer punishment for Tonda. They were reigned in on that by their independent commission. Why would the commission act different if we were in the Premier League?

Edited 8 hours ago by Fabrice29

[The Kraken]

4 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

If it had come to light after the Oxford game, what would a proportionate punishment have been ?

Points deduction ? Touchline ban for Tonda ? 

Once we were in the playoffs certain sanctions, such as an immediate points deduction, were off the table.

This is where I see the EFL ruling was a bit inconsistent (without going into whether it was proportionate or not). The precedent now seems to be:

• Get caught spying before a cup game, the result is void and you are ejected from the completion, with other team advancing
• Get caught spying before a league game, the result stands, you are deducted 3 points which may be argued down to 2

Seems to me that consistency would be retained by keeping the cup rule, but in the league nulling the result and enforcing a 0-3 instead (unless the actual result was worse than that).

[The Kraken]

1 minute ago, Fabrice29 said:

Fair enough, I hadn’t read that part.

[hypochondriac]

8 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

This is where I see the EFL ruling was a bit inconsistent (without going into whether it was proportionate or not). The precedent now seems to be:

• Get caught spying before a cup game, the result is void and you are ejected from the completion, with other team advancing
• Get caught spying before a league game, the result stands, you are deducted 3 points which may be argued down to 2

Seems to me that consistency would be retained by keeping the cup rule, but in the league nulling the result and enforcing a 0-3 instead (unless the actual result was worse than that).

Not really. Changing the results retrospectively would have made no difference given that Ipswich got promoted and Oxford lost.