The Spygate Saga - 6 Week ban suspended for Eckert

[whelk]

Just now, Toadhall Saint said:

Love Dragans comments on the EFL - we will not forget - sounds like a blood feud in the making 

Yeah winding up those self-pitying Boro melts. So glad they live in the absolute shithole they deserve. Real nothing club

[Willo of Whiteley]

Imagine if we don’t beat Portsmouth now - that’ll be a come down

[sockeye]

[Colinjb]

Common sense has, for once, prevailed.

Tonda saw his hard work last year destroyed by his mistake, now a fine and he is still working for us to recover from his mess.

And the punishment effects him, not the supporters who, through no fault of our own had a wonderful occasion taken away and season ruined.

We now draw a line in the sand and move on.

And, to any smoggies on here feeling incredulous.... What more do you want!? Stop projecting your clubs failings onto us. Your team and manager blew it. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Colinjb

[BallBoy]

Delighted but surprised. This is a huge weight lifted for the club, the players, the fans and, most of all, for Tonda himself.

[LegalEagle]

28 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

https://fmttmboro.com/index.php?threads/eckert’s-day-of-reckoning.85933/page-14

They are a sad and bitter bunch. Fancy losing to Hull in that final after all the energy they spent on getting us kicked out. Middlesborough - the armpit of England.

[PerthshireSaint]

5 minutes ago, egg said:

Yep, that's the gist of it, and they also had a  very different opinion of Tonda, and essentially saw it as a double punishment of the club, fans, sponsors, etc. 

thanks for the summaries, genuinely 

you’re a good Egg 😊

[PerthshireSaint]

3 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Imagine if we don’t beat Portsmouth now - that’ll be a come down

Tonda OUT 

[musesaint]

Apologies if this question has been posted elsewhere but does this impact Tonda if we end up in the Playoffs? As we all know from the saga he and Saints have already been put through, tge Championship League and the Playoffs are apparently separate competitions. In other words does the ban become effective when the league season ends???

[Pamplemousse]

I wish we were playing Boro this weekend instead of the Skates

We'll just have to smash them both and wait our turn for the bottle jobs to come down

[Jimmy_D]

1 minute ago, musesaint said:

Apologies if this question has been posted elsewhere but does this impact Tonda if we end up in the Playoffs? As we all know from the saga he and Saints have already been put through, tge Championship League and the Playoffs are apparently separate competitions. In other words does the ban become effective when the league season ends???

There’s no ban at all unless he commits another offence. (And it’d have to specifically be a spying offence.)

[ecuk268]

21 minutes ago, DT said:

I could have told you all about this result as I was up a tree with my iPhone outside Lancaster Gate but chose not to. Suspect Man City will not get a lenient time of it, but there will be a superleague with all the big boys conspiring anyhow. Long live lower league footie

Hope you didn't stay too long.

They haven't been at Lancaster Gate for some time. Now at Wembley.

[trousers]

Do we know who was on the commission? Need to buy them a beer.

[Zorba]

34 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

What a twat. No one will be repeating it after the bun raping the EFL gave us.

Made us look like right doughnuts!

[Monk]

[Lighthouse]

Good, finally we can draw a line under this and move on. Time to start delivering a bit more on the pitch now.

[Greenridge]

4 minutes ago, musesaint said:

Apologies if this question has been posted elsewhere but does this impact Tonda if we end up in the Playoffs? As we all know from the saga he and Saints have already been put through, tge Championship League and the Playoffs are apparently separate competitions. In other words does the ban become effective when the league season ends???

The ban would only come into play if he was to commit another offence. Or beat Middlesbrough.

[Pamplemousse]

1 minute ago, trousers said:

Do we know who was on the commission? Need to buy them a beer.

Yup, their names are at the start of the written reasons on the FA website

[LGTL]

Justice. But it just confirms most of our thoughts that the original EFL decision was a disgrace. We all knew it wasn’t independent and heavily influenced by Gibson, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. 

Edited 4 hours ago by LGTL

[Britannia]

126. Before dealing with the various points that have been advanced by Mr Harris

as mitigation, we must make some observations on Mr Eckert as a witness before us.

We are mindful that in the League Arbitration Panel, The Rt Hon Sir Gary Hickinbottom

noted that the EFL Disciplinary Commission were “unimpressed” with some of the

Club’s witnesses, including Mr Eckert, suggesting they were unaware the observations

were in breach of EFL Regulations for various stated reasons. We also note that the

EFL Commission were not persuaded that the information from the observations had

not been of much use, a point we have not concentrated on because we do not

consider that whether or not the information was or was not useful takes away from

the seriousness of the offences (or offers mitigation), which in the case of Mr Eckert

concentrates on his requesting observation in the Oxford United F.C. Incident and the

Middlesbrough F.C. Incident and authorising receipt of CCTV in the Ipswich Town F.C.

Incident.

127. Mindful of the findings below, we nonetheless found Mr Eckert to be a

particularly impressive witness. That another Commission, on another day, were

unimpressed with some of his evidence is a matter we have considered, but it does

not alter our impression of him as a very impressive witness in the evidence he gave

to us, both in writing but particularly during the hearing.

128. It was evident to the Commission that Mr Eckert has reflected very deeply and

seriously on what had happened, including not simply reading all the EFL Regulations

so he was aware of them, but going to quite extraordinary lengths not simply to learn

the Rules but also to understand why the Rules are as they are, including seeking to

understand the differences in culture between what happens in this country and what

happens in countries where he had worked previously.

 

———

This highlights, as many were suggesting, the differences between the panels.

Edited 4 hours ago by Britannia

[hypochondriac]

Twats at the FA seeking three months. Quite a few in here purporting to be itk have ruined their reputations.

[hypochondriac]

32 minutes ago, MB said:

Oh and for the record my source is extremely high up in the sfc chain. Your loss 👋

Thought your last post was your last post for a while? If you told me it was night time I'd have to check that the sun wasn't shining.

[JSpeake]

More than pleasantly surprised given some of the guidance provided by the “ITK’s” - also happy that SR seems to have learnt its lesson and obtained proper legal counsel.

Really looking forward now to stuffing that small club from Portsea Island on Sunday - I’ll be there.

[St Louis]

23 minutes ago, Pamplemousse said:

Reading though the sanction document, the FA wanted to impose a ban of three months from all footballing activity and a hefty fine. (Paragraph 108)

The Indepdent Panel told the FA to fuck off basically.

The FA's proposed starting point was actually at least a 9 month ban! 😡
We also owe a Paul Harris KC a beer, as he was in our corner for this case. He’s part of Manchester City’s legal team defending the Premier League financial charges and also led City’s successful 2020 appeal against UEFA’s Champions League ban.
PDF of The case for 'The FA v Tonda' is here: https://www.thefa.com/news/2026/oct/07/tonda-eckert-update-071026

Edited 4 hours ago by St Louis

[The Wyvern]

Great news, we’ve already had a ridiculously hard punishment,  draw a line and now move on. 

[23rdSaint]

I'm just really pleased for Tonda. He's in his early 30s – whole career ahead of him – and been through an unimaginably awful time. In public. With the outcome costing his employer £100M plus. During a time when he's just had a baby and is perceived as the worst villain in football. 
 

And, from reading the FA findings, all because of cultural ignorance. Nothing malicious. 

Cheers to Tonda 🍻

[BranfootsLoveChild]

There's a page on FB called Gazette Boro or something like that and the comments from Boro fans are gold 😅

[egg]

17 minutes ago, LegalEagle said:

They are a sad and bitter bunch. Fancy losing to Hull in that final after all the energy they spent on getting us kicked out. Middlesborough - the armpit of England.

Them being so upset is the icing on the cake. 

[Doctoroncall]

41 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

https://fmttmboro.com/index.php?threads/eckert’s-day-of-reckoning.85933/page-14

Most are making it the Crime of the century, basically saying spying guarantees a win, all teams will be at it if promotion/relegation is at stake. 🤪😂

[bangkoksaint]

3 minutes ago, St Louis said:

The FA's proposed starting point was actually at least a 9 month ban! 😡
We also owe a Paul Harris KC a beer, as he was in our corner for this case. He’s part of Manchester City’s legal team defending the Premier League financial charges and also led City’s successful 2020 appeal against UEFA’s Champions League ban.
PDF of The case for 'The FA v Tonda' is here: https://www.thefa.com/news/2026/oct/07/tonda-eckert-update-071026

TBF I expect Harris was probably on circa £5k an hour or more for this case. He’s done very well out of it and you get what you pay for. Be interesting to know what his final bill is and also what this sorry sordid tale has cost us in total. 

[whelk]

1 minute ago, Doctoroncall said:

Most are making it the Crime of the century, basically saying spying guarantees a win, all teams will be at it if promotion/relegation is at stake. 🤪😂

They should be fucking grateful for our taxes that pay their benefits 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 minute ago, bangkoksaint said:

TBF I expect Harris was probably on circa £5k an hour or more for this case. He’s done very well out of it and you get what you pay for. Be interesting to know what his final bill is and also what this sorry sordid tale has cost us in total. 

Parsons should be footing a large portion of any such costs

[Saint86]

16 minutes ago, trousers said:

Do we know who was on the commission? Need to buy them a beer.

I believe it is these 3?

[tdmickey3]

51 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

https://fmttmboro.com/index.php?threads/eckert’s-day-of-reckoning.85933/page-14

One of the slum dwellers wants Gibbo to make a statement 🤣

[The Wyvern]

2 minutes ago, bangkoksaint said:

TBF I expect Harris was probably on circa £5k an hour or more for this case. He’s done very well out of it and you get what you pay for. Be interesting to know what his final bill is and also what this sorry sordid tale has cost us in total. 

I was going to say similar, must have cost us an absolute fortune. 

[Cuddles]

 

[Stud mark of doom]

Nice little side bar from the full FA statement, in our written statement we keep spelling it Middlesborough (with an extra o) which they hate up there - and the FA repeatedly add “(sic)” after to show we’ve misspelt it. 

Then later on in the FA’s own description they refer to them “Middleborough”

[Baird of the land]

Relief to get that sorted. Given how harsh the punishment had already been I was worried we'd be treated as a punching bag once again.

[ant]

Having skimmed the FA's written reasons, it appears Tonda played a blinder throughout proceedings - ably supported by competent legal counsel. 

Time to look forward rather than back, but it does make me wonder whether Paul Harris KC could've had the EFL on toast...

[Paul Chuckle]

Sky Sports News reporter just said he'd spoken to a number of managers in the EFL who felt exclusion from the Playoffs was a harsh punishment. I thought Neil Harris said all 71 managers in the EFL wanted Tonda banned? 

[beatlesaint]

MB still around ?

[skintsaint]

Basically couldn't give him longer, as in his Saints contract a long ban meant getting sacked, and they didn't want that.

[beatlesaint]

1 minute ago, Paul Chuckle said:

Sky Sports News reporter just said he'd spoken to a number of managers in the EFL who felt exclusion from the Playoffs was a harsh punishment. I thought Neil Harris said all 71 managers in the EFL wanted Tonda banned? 

Mark McAdam was absolutely brilliant there on Sky Sports News. No sensational bullshit, just facts. Great journalism 

[Harry_SFC]

Just goes to show what a ridiculous decision it was to kick us out of that final. The EFL are corrupt as fuck.

Let's hope this news gives everyone a lift and we can smash those fuckers on Sunday. 

[maysie]

So much redacted in the full PDF from FA. Hurting my small brain trying to make sense of it.

[coalman]

Sending the YouTube shorts version in case you want to leave it on loop

 

[saint francis]

Good result.  That's an end to that huge distraction.  Wonder if we'll see a bit of a bounce from this On Sunday.  Hope so.

[die Mannyschaft]

1 minute ago, skintsaint said:

Basically couldn't give him longer, as in his Saints contract a long ban meant getting sacked, and they didn't want that.

It also makes it much more complicated for FA  to give City a soft punishment. 

[SylvianSylvian]

Absolutely delighted. Common sense prevailed for once. Was certain they’d throw the book at our beautiful boy, very happy to be massively wrong! 

[die Mannyschaft]

2 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Just goes to show what a ridiculous decision it was to kick us out of that final. The EFL are corrupt as fuck.

Let's hope this news gives everyone a lift and we can smash those fuckers on Sunday. 

Fuck the EFL and Fuck off Pompey nice and loud on Sunday!