Southampton spying compendium thread

[one footed wonder]

I was surprised by this as well. The thing that occurred to me is that if they think they're going to end up with more provable complaints of spying, they're giving themselves headroom to give a 2 point deduction each time. So it could end up more like 20, if 10 clubs can prove something

Be very interesting to see if any other clubs take anything forward

 

[Al Bundy]

Boro play whoever finished 7th, winner plays Hull in the final.

I can just imagine Callum Doyle of Wrexham getting a call on holiday in the Maldives.
“Callum, finish that Pina colada, climb off that lass and get your arse back asap, we’ve got a game Saturday”

 

[Mackemansj1]

This. And we all know that there will be more spying they got away with. I’m just hoping other clubs do their own investigations to uncover more breaches and they get further points deductions for next season.

The player doing the binoculars and the fans thinking it’s funny are now crying into their corn flakes. Reversing that will just make cheating look worth it.

Their incredible upturn in form since a new never before managed manger took over looks iffy as fuck now. I’m sure his win percentage is up there with the very best in football. It’s all very very dodgy looking now.

 

[123SunTan]

Never liked Soton (the 8-0 may have something to do with it). Good that they got caught for cheating and punished.

 

[Mackemansj1]

I can just imagine Callum Doyle of Wrexham getting a call on holiday in the Maldives.
“Callum, finish that Pina colada, climb off that lass and get your arse back asap, we’ve got a game Saturday”

This it’s went way too far now the only thing can be to put boro through. The rest would cause huge issues. Aye let’s just re do more games when the World Cup kicks off soon etc. They are stretching it as it is.

 

[Ferryhill Exile]

I sort of see what you're saying, but surely (even though he's young-ish) the bloke is a grown man who surely must have known that what he was doing was against the rules and against the principles of the game.
Despite this, he was seemingly quite happy to go along with it and at the very least he surely knew that the risks (and ramifications) of being caught out outweighed the rewards of doing something so underhand.
Only got himself to blame imo

I get what you're saying and understand the "just following orders" mantra. Just doesn't sit well with me he'll likely lose his job and get a load of personal shite off the back of it. Sadly and most likely trying to impress the people and club he's desperate to get a full-time job with - if the talk of him being an intern are true!

Cracking AI video of him being whalloped with a parmo though. I can get behind that

 

[ATS]

Spot on.
I did my best to avoid calling fellow SAFC fans thick feckers but maaaan it was difficult.
It’s in part an equal part expose of peoples IQ levels and of the failings of the English education system.
Southampton cheated which means they have to suffer the consequences. Not suffering the consequences could’ve meant they benefited to the value of £250m. It’s not rocket science to anyone with even half a brain but to some on here……….

Pleased I agreed with you all the way through

 

[Gloucester]

Proportionality of the punishment to the offense. Potential £200m+ earnings being removed against what they did, or at least that is how it came across on R4 this morning.

It is utter bollocks though. Firstly, they have no more than a 50/50 chance v Hull who have beaten them twice this season.

Second - what happens to the money? It gets blown on overpriced players such as Ross Stewart last time they got promoted and big pay rises for players. How much has KLD banked from our promotion? It all just sloshes around the ridiculous football world.

I think relatively few Southampton people are responsible for this mess. All the staff, maybe the players but perhaps not the senior management and certainly not the fans. However, if they start playing the hard done by victims they are in for a hell of a shock next season. They won’t be welcome anywhere.

 

[woodlebert]

Their incredible upturn in form since a new never before managed manger took over looks iffy as fuck now. I’m sure his win percentage is up there with the very best in football. It’s all very very dodgy looking now.

P 33
W 18
D 8
L 5

Quite the turnaround since they were 4th bottom or so when he took over. They're top of the league since November 2nd

Southampton cheated which means they have to suffer the consequences. Not suffering the consequences could’ve meant they benefited to the value of £250m. It’s not rocket science to anyone with even half a brain but to some on here……….

I think some of it comes down to believing the EFL would do it. I thought Southampton did wrong and thought they should have been expelled from the play offs, but I wasn't sure the EFL would do it, as I tend to think EFL (and PL) sanctions underplay the severity of the misdeeds

 

[Pantomime Mackem]

That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s defensible. There are at least 2 aspects of common law they could argue the EFL haven’t adhered to - sufficient time to prepare this case and for the appeal not having the detailed summary of reasoning for the outcome prior.

We will have to see what and how it plays out but it would be foolish to not expect the EFL not following the process won’t create a risk for them. As I say if they have to argue that they have created an exceptional process purely for expediency sake that’s probably the worst thing they could do.

That’s a different point from what you were first arguing. The test for shortening the time is if the EFL had “compelling reason” to do so. I’d be open to arguments why there was no compelling reason in this case. Two factors to bear in mind are:
- the guilty plea (so no time needed to prepare a defence rebutting the allegations)
- the need to play the final on Saturday (I’ve posted upthread why this is important)

 

[Blyth]

Listening to NTT20 pod and they said when they spied on Ipswich they (Ipswich) were training at Eastleigh and he was wearing Eastleigh training gear as a disguise.

 

[andy78]

I can't believe people are saying the punishment doesn't fit the crime, when kicking them out of the play offs is the only punishment that would work. How can you fine a team 200k or even 200m when they may end up getting 250m as an award for promotion? The only fine that would work in that instance would be a 250m+ fine, any other punishment and they have been rewarded for cheating.

Listening to NTT20 pod and they said when they spied on Ipswich they (Ipswich) were training at Eastleigh and he was wearing Eastleigh training gear as a disguise.

Aye, that was in the Athletic this morning.

 

[Mackemansj1]

Listening to NTT20 pod and they said when they spied on Ipswich they (Ipswich) were training at Eastleigh and he was wearing Eastleigh training gear as a disguise.

Sure the boro manager said he got changed into training gear at one point. It’s obviously a well worked and used many times routine.

 

[ned_werby]

They were back in training from Monday I believe.

And given Tuesday off. Sort of blars any argument about 'preparation' out of the water.

Proportionality of the punishment to the offense. Potential £200m+ earnings being removed against what they did, or at least that is how it came across on R4 this morning.

With no guarantees. 'Potential' doing a lot of lifting there.....

 

[Black_Cats1879]

Filthy horrible club

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[chriswallace85]

The really fuckin' stupid thing about all this, is what on earth did Southampton hope to gan by having some gonk film another team's training session on his phone?

With all the video analysis of actual games etc available nowadays, what good is some dodgy footage from behind a tree two fields away to any body?

Stupid stupid bastards.

They deserve everything they get just for being that fuckin' numb.

 

[ned_werby]

Admitting the charge has absolutely no bearing on if the correct process was followed. Regardless the appeal is a new phase so even if Southampton strategically wanted to be cooperative on flexing the process for the initial hearing they could still challenge the appeal phase if they aren’t given enough time to prepare and don’t have the written outcome for the original hearing.

The worst thing the EFL could do is say the circumvented their own process for expediency due to the circumstances. If they have to admit that then Southamptons lawyers will be rubbing their hands together.

More nonsense. Charge has been admitted, the EFL get to decide the sanction, fine, points deduction or expulsion. Oh, and there is no further appeal allowed after today. No CAS, no arbitration, nothing. And if SFC want to go the legal route they'll be even more fucked than they already are.

 

[MonkeyLove]

I don't mean to be rude, but a lot of what you are saying doesn't have any basis in the legal issues that are live in this case.

Your complaint about not following the process or "discarding" the rules is not an accurate characterisation. The EPL's procedural rules contain a power for a decision making body to extend or abridge any time limit. Either Southampton agreed to that, in which case there is no appeal. Or they did not agree but the decision making body nevertheless abridged time. If that is the case they are possibly already out of time to challenge the abridgement. Even if they are not, they would have to show that no reasonable decision maker could have come to the same conclusion. To put it another way, the appeal would have to decide that every reasonable decision maker would not have abridged time. Not impossible, but not far off impossible in a context where, because of when Southampton chose to cheat, time was most definitely of the essence.

Your comments about separate court proceedings are also incorrect. The EFL Regulations contain a valid arbitration agreement and Southampton have already submitted to its jurisdiction. The power of a Court to interfere in those circumstances are very, very limited and only exercised in fairly exceptional circumstances.

Again, while it is not impossible to get an interim injunction to restrain the enforcement of an abitral award pending a claim to overturn it, such applications are vanishingly rare, particularly in circumstances where the arbitration agreement contains a provision about making an application to suspend an award pending an appeal and no application appears to have been made to the arbitration panel. Interim injunctions also have a huge downside in that to get one, the applicant has to give an undertaking to the Court to comply with any order it might make in respect of damages if the injunction is later found to be wrongly granted. If Boro are not in the final because of an interim injunction that is later found to have been wrongly granted, Southampton could end up having to compensate Boro for the loss of the chance of PL revenue. This could run to many 10s of millions. This would be so even if Southampton lost the playoff final, because damages are not about what the wrong party gained. They are about what the right party lost.

Not sure how you think any interim injunction could be both incorrectly granted and deprive Boro of playing in the final. The only realistic basis for injunctive relief would be to delay the final not reverse the decision to reinstate Saints.

The only basis I’m suggesting Southampton might believe they have a case, and I think it would be more on today’s appeal, is S33. Is it reasonable to expect Southampton to file an appeal within less then 24 hours without the final written summary of the initial arbitration and clarity on the reasoning for the award. Personally I think they could make a strong case that it isnt.

The argument of expediency, which is the sole reason the EFL have for abridging the timelines, doesn’t negate the test of if it was fair which is what S33 deals with. The timeframe, particularly to prepare for the appeal, is that far away from the documented timeline and that without the full written judgement provided to Southampton for the appeal, I could see the EFL having a hard time arguing how the arbitration was conducted reasonably. Why have a documented 14 day process if it’s reasonable to constrain that to less then 1?

Whether they have a right to amend the timelines or not is irrelevant, they still have to defend that it was fair.

 

[SAFC11]

I can't believe people are saying the punishment doesn't fit the crime, when kicking them out of the play offs is the only punishment that would work. How can you fine a team 200k or even 200m when they may end up getting 250m as an award for promotion? The only fine that would work in that instance would be a 250m+ fine, any other punishment and they have been rewarded for cheating.

Aye, that was in the Athletic this morning.

Whats frustrating is the amount of ex pros saying its unfair and that a hefty fine would suffice

 

[123SunTan]

P 33
W 18
D 8
L 5

Quite the turnaround since they were 4th bottom or so when he took over. They're top of the league since November 2nd

I think some of it comes down to believing the EFL would do it. I thought Southampton did wrong and thought they should have been expelled from the play offs, but I wasn't sure the EFL would do it, as I tend to think EFL (and PL) sanctions underplay the severity of the misdeeds

Football these days are all about number crunching, I'm sure all the teams and pundits are looking into how well Soton did in the first 15 minutes since November 2nd as insights gained from cheating would have been most useful at the start.