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 Southampton spying on Middlesbrough

 
‘In fact, at no stage was there any finding that the club actually obtained any sporting advantage as a result of the conduct in question.’

Basically saying that because they didn’t win any of the games then it is clear their spying missions weren’t successful, failing to point out that they shouldn’t have been spying in the first place!
 
Steve Gilbert said:
‘In fact, at no stage was there any finding that the club actually obtained any sporting advantage as a result of the conduct in question.’

Basically saying that because they didn’t win any of the games then it is clear their spying missions weren’t successful, failing to point out that they shouldn’t have been spying in the first place!
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Exactly.

Back in 2011, these 2 fellas tried to mug me (one had a blade, the other had a rounders bat) but I managed to escape them with both my health and all of my money and possessions. Should they avoid punishment because they didn't actually manage to rob me of my cash and phone? No.
 
stokeu said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Spygate: Southampton owner Dragan Solak will not sack head coach Tonda Eckert

Southampton owner Dragan Solak tells BBC Sport he will not sack Tonda Eckert, despite the "mistake" the head coach made when authorising a spying campaign against rival Championship clubs.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
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I suppose they did very well under him. With a great run in the 2nd half of the season, taking them all the way to the Playoff final (that they might well have won). If you forget the "mistake" of not knowing what was acceptable in this country, then why would they get rid of such a good manager?
 
Steve Gilbert said:
‘In fact, at no stage was there any finding that the club actually obtained any sporting advantage as a result of the conduct in question.’

Basically saying that because they didn’t win any of the games then it is clear their spying missions weren’t successful, failing to point out that they shouldn’t have been spying in the first place!
Click to expand...
We all know we would have won 10-0 if they hadn't cheated...
 
stokeu said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Spygate: Southampton owner Dragan Solak will not sack head coach Tonda Eckert

Southampton owner Dragan Solak tells BBC Sport he will not sack Tonda Eckert, despite the "mistake" the head coach made when authorising a spying campaign against rival Championship clubs.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
I hope the Southampton fans do the right thing and turn against their owner and manager now. Clearly a club with no morals and rotten to the core.

I expect the FA will ban those involved in it too.
 
stokeu said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Spygate: Southampton owner Dragan Solak will not sack head coach Tonda Eckert

Southampton owner Dragan Solak tells BBC Sport he will not sack Tonda Eckert, despite the "mistake" the head coach made when authorising a spying campaign against rival Championship clubs.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
Soton Owner was on BBC Breakfast ( sport section) saying exactly that ^^

so far, the FA appear to be doing sweet FA about the culture of blatant cheating at southampton instigated by the manager and his team, cheating that seems to have been endorsed by the owner.

* edit- I was typing this as @Steve Gilbert posted above mentioning the FA
 
maidenheadox said:
I think it's inevitable that Eckert will be banned by the FA, probably one or two others. Solak does not seem be engaging with reality.
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Nah, I suspect he's very well engaged with reality and is creating a martyr, leading to righteous indignation, and a them against the world complex.

No one likes them, they don't care kind of thing.

I suspect it will work rather well.


Fair play though - I didn't imagine anyone on the south coast could be a bigger bunch of c***s than Pompey.
 
OUFCGav said:
Their statements don't get any better. They really don't seem to get that their words are just making them look more ridiculous.
Things like:
"We also note that the club was judged against the very highest standards of integrity and good faith. That is entirely proper. What is harder to accept is that similar scrutiny does not appear to have been applied to the composition of the disciplinary panel itself, given the apparent historic and indirect connections of two panel members to Middlesbrough. While those connections do not by themselves prove bias, they plainly raise legitimate questions about consistency, perception and the standards of independence expected in proceedings of this magnitude."
That is just getting into Trump'ish levels of deflection.
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Perhaps those two panelists need to float the idea of a defamation claim following that particular statement.
 
Steve Gilbert said:
He was an intern so I doubt he was even paid except for his expenses.

Southampton have ruined his career before it started as he will always be known as the guy who went on a spying mission.
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More damaging is that it was a failed spying mission.
 
This is nonsense.

‘I didn’t know the rules’. Even though the analysts in question are recorded as saying it was wrong and they felt uncomfortable doing it.

‘I didn’t know it was wrong’. Even though you had one guy hiding behind a tree with an escape bag stashed in a nearby golf club, and another time you had your analysts decked out in Eastleigh gear. Completely normal conduct for people who think what they’re doing is permissible.

The lack of contrition from Southampton is an absolute disgrace and real stain upon the EFL and the Championship.
 
The other employees having felt or had pressure to do the spying shows that plenty of people knew the rules so they are also to blame for not alerting Eckert to the said rules.
 
Yellowmania said:
Best bit of downright lying yet to come out of Southampton with a new statement from the deluded manager.
How many times can they shoot themselves in the foot?

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Utter bull💩 sorry that is rubbish so absolutely no one inside Southampton not the coaches not the other backroom team knew that it was against the rules

Come on you played a oxford team that had zero confidence bottom of the league and you just wanted to know if we would play a back 4 or 5 just because we had changed manager you had premiership players you had better players than us from 1 to 18 and yet you still didn't trust your better players to play a system and tactics that would beat us so you had to cheat pathetic

The fa need to get that young analyst and tell him hes safe he wont get a ban or any punishment and get him to confess that there was more teams they went and watched training sessions as I dont buy that it was just 3 teams at all
 
Billyox said:
Come on you played a oxford team that had zero confidence bottom of the league and you just wanted to know if we would play a back 4 or 5 just because we had changed manager you had premiership players you had better players than us from 1 to 18 and yet you still didn't trust your better players to play a system and tactics that would beat us so you had to cheat pathetic
Click to expand...

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head as to why this story continues to get me really quite angry. Looking from a distance it IS kind of comical, the circumstances behind it will be made into an ITV drama some time in the future, and ultimately they were punished accordingly.

But it’s the lack of contrition for this that really irks me. We were Oxford United, in the Championship. You’ve absolutely nailed where we were at in December. Manager-less, our form for months had been miserable, we barely had the football, we barely attacked. Their squad, facilities, finances and parachute payments were so beyond us. And yet they still felt compelled to remove the one fathomable sporting advantage we could possibly have which is a change in tactical shape. Or preparing our players as best we can for the game in private. It’s disgusting.

I don’t buy any of it. I don’t buy it was just those three games. I don’t buy the ‘sorry I’m a young foreign manager and didn’t know it was wrong’ defence.

They barely admitted guilt. They lied when they first got caught. They continue to go as far as possible to avoid admitting any kind of culpability. I’d kind of put it behind me but these latest statements have angered me all over again.
 
Billyox said:
Utter bull💩 sorry that is rubbish so absolutely no one inside Southampton not the coaches not the other backroom team knew that it was against the rules

Come on you played a oxford team that had zero confidence bottom of the league and you just wanted to know if we would play a back 4 or 5 just because we had changed manager you had premiership players you had better players than us from 1 to 18 and yet you still didn't trust your better players to play a system and tactics that would beat us so you had to cheat pathetic

The fa need to get that young analyst and tell him hes safe he wont get a ban or any punishment and get him to confess that there was more teams they went and watched training sessions as I dont buy that it was just 3 teams at all
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100% this
 
Read the owners interview. I saw it on the BBC.
He's basically saying 'if the analysts knew it was wrong or thought it was wrong they should have refused to do it'.
It read to me like they are putting all blame at the feet of the analysts who should have known better and should have pushed back harder if they thought it was wrong. There is also a part where he says 'the request was for the analyst to go on the Monday but didnt go until the thursday. If they had gone when we wanted it wouldnt have broken any rules'.
It also suggested that if the FA bans the manager they will appeal it. I hope he gets a long ban and part of me wishes more evidence came out so they got a bigger deduction.
 
Steve Gilbert said:
I hope the Southampton fans do the right thing and turn against their owner and manager now. Clearly a club with no morals and rotten to the core.

I expect the FA will ban those involved in it too.
Click to expand...
Having had a quick read on the Southampton forum then I don't hold out much hope of this. I now hope Southampton as a club and their fan base go to wall and struggle for many years to come.
 
Billyox said:
Where in that manager statement was the direct apology to oxford united Ipswich Town and Middlesbrough
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To be fair he did say he apolgises to the clubs involved. It’s nonsense because the whole premise behind his apology was ‘I’m young and foreign and didn’t know the rules’. But there was a token apology in there
 
OUFC1978 said:
Read the owners interview. I saw it on the BBC.
He's basically saying 'if the analysts knew it was wrong or thought it was wrong they should have refused to do it'.
It read to me like they are putting all blame at the feet of the analysts who should have known better and should have pushed back harder if they thought it was wrong. There is also a part where he says 'the request was for the analyst to go on the Monday but didnt go until the thursday. If they had gone when we wanted it wouldnt have broken any rules'.
It also suggested that if the FA bans the manager they will appeal it. I hope he gets a long ban and part of me wishes more evidence came out so they got a bigger deduction.
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Agree with all of that ^^

Typical arrogant management type, scapegoating and putting the blame on the intern- who wouldnt dare challenge his line managers, or hedve been dispensed with. Bullying in the workplace, ruling by fear, at its 'finest'. It happened on the Chairmans watch, I hope the FA find him no longer a fit and proper person to own a professional football club. He is a cheat enabler (and a bully)

and also I have the ( unlikely) hope that the FA find that there were more than the 3 admitted instances of spying, then relegate the cheats to League 1 , and reinstate Oxford Utd in the Championship for the forthcoming season.- Of course, as always, It's the hope , no matter how slim, that kills ya
 
Last edited:
McXal said:
To be fair he did say he apolgises to the clubs involved. It’s nonsense because the whole premise behind his apology was ‘I’m young and foreign and didn’t know the rules’. But there was a token apology in there
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It is also horseshit as he was at Barnsley as Asst Manager from 2020-22 when the new rules were brought in/fresh in the mind.
 
McXal said:
To be fair he did say he apolgises to the clubs involved. It’s nonsense because the whole premise behind his apology was ‘I’m young and foreign and didn’t know the rules’. But there was a token apology in there
Click to expand...
The fact he was Asst Mgr or something similar at Barnsley for 18 months between 2020 and 2022 obviously didn’t teach him anything, despite this time period coming not long after the Leeds fiasco and the rules being in place then.

How anyone could believe or fall for the being foreign and not knowing the rules bullshit is beyond me.

There is clearly a huge problem at the club and they should have acted in a much stronger way by now. Of course there may be many others involved and they are trying to deflect what’s been going on, as clearly the rules have repeatedly been broken, but the managers response is laughable and completely infuriating at the same time.
 
Osleroad said:
The other employees having felt or had pressure to do the spying shows that plenty of people knew the rules so they are also to blame for not alerting Eckert to the said rules.
Click to expand...
Echert saying he wasn't aware it wasn't allowed in England is probably stretching it too. He was assistant manager at Barnsley at the time of the Leeds spygate incident, and I cannot imagine it wasn't discussed at Barnsley at the time.
 
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