Spygate

I wonder what's going to come out in the hearings.

Southampton have tried to downplay the whole thing. Just an intern trying to impress but not because he was told to, nothing to do with the real coaching team. And it was a one off.

Regardless, spying is now directly covered in the rules. Section 127 of the regulations says: “Without prejudice to the requirements of Regulation 3.4 (that each Club shall behave towards each other Club with the utmost good faith), no Club shall directly or indirectly observe (or attempt to observe) another Club’s training session in the period of 72 hours prior to any match scheduled to be played between those respective Clubs.” Since they've admitted the charge, apparently, I guess they're trying to get in with their mitigation. But things might go very badly if it turns out they've been dishonest with their early excuses.

Some interesting coverage suggesting other championship clubs are reviewing footbage of their training, to see if they can spot some lad filming them through the fence. Have Southampton been spying on all their opponents since the new manager took over? If this was an episode of CSI, I think I might start by getting info on the location of all Southampton analysts in the week before games, to see if they just happen to have travelled around the country to visit all of their rivals.

Will they get booted out? £10k fine? I reckon the EFL will bottle it because they usually do. Then we'll have Spygategate.

Posted By: Under soil heating, May 12, 14:10:59