Southampton kicked out of Championship playoff final and docked four points for spying
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/may/19/southampton-kicked-out-of-championship-playoff-final-docked-four-points-for-spying
Posted by pppppppppppppppppd
25 Comments
>Boro said they had caught a Southampton analyst hiding in the bushes and recording their training session.
Not the most elaborate of schemes, as espionage goes. What a bunch of berks.
Wow I am truly amazed they did anything 😂 can EFL please have words with EPL.
What? Accountability and culpability in football? In this economy?
Someone wake me up from this dream.
> Southampton did not win any of the games that followed their spying, losing at Oxford and drawing at home to Ipswich and at Middlesbrough.
‘We knew all their moves and we still lost…’
I spy with my little eye, something beginning with HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If it was Celtic they would have got away with it, and be given additional points
English football pulling up to enforce rules on the one day my club breaks them 🥲
It couldn’t have been any other way.
Promotion to the Premier League is worth upwards of £100m. A fine would be meaningless and simply be seen as the cost of doing business for any club in future looking to cheat in a similar way.
It had to be a serious sporting penalty.
PL take note.
Will city must be in really really really big trouble then…..
The exact type of verdict needed, it tells every other Championship team if you want to cut corners to get to the Prem you won’t get off with a slap on the wrist
There are 50 games recorded at every angle in stadiums of them playing. What in sweet fuck would a video from an iPhone do?
Now they’ve thrown away 110m. Look like dicks and start 4 points down.
Cheating should at least have a purpose!
Imagine if Man Citys 115 charges happened this fast
Southampton City Council should seize St Mary’s and bulldoze the place
The city will be better with more homes
Fuck football
Meanwhile, Manchester City has had 115 charges pending for about four years with no end in sight.
Sure glasses with cameras would have been better here..
Good stuff, not just because I like Boro but because it’s important that a firm stand be taken on this, and anything short of defaulting them the play-off game wouldn’t do that as the potential gain would outweigh any reasonable fine.
It would be nice to see 115 FC get some consequences delivered in a reasonable time though.
Imagine missing out on the Premier League over something so utterly stupid. Whoever planned this should be sacked and never get a job in football again
So Hull City only have 3 days preparation whereas Middlesbrough were prepping for the City game as soon as they lodged their appeal? That is some bullshit for Hull- they’ve done nothing wrong.
I’m loving the schadenfreude of this one.
So glad we won’t be seeing Taylor Harwood-Bellend in the prem anytime soon
Anybody feel like Millwall should feel a bit sore about this. Technically they finished higher than both, granted they lost to hull but shouldn’t Middlesbrough and Millwall play an 2 off game winner goes to the final, and push back the final?
DOI: Boro fan
Of all the outcomes I expected this was not the one. Thought they wouldn’t be brave enough to change the result after the matches were played. Entirely deserved though if they admitted it multiple times across a season as the statement implies.
Kind of mad they expect Hull (who largely expected Southampton) and us (who were out) to play the match in four days though. No idea how they expect Boro fans to get tickets, trains, hotels etc. Similarly it is genuinely shit for 37k Saints fans who bought them in good faith. Can also see Wrexham fans etc being aggrieved given it’s gone on most of the season and they could have made playoffs if Southampton dropped a few points
Also feel worse for Conway now. World Cup hopes ended by an injury in a match that was retrospectively made irrelevant. Thats properly shit.
Whole thing is a cluster fuck really
Should have been done before the semi-final. Wrexham denied their chance!
Got to feel sorry for the fans. LCFC here and I thought our club was being run by the biggest idiots.
Man City should start doing this on the weekly next year, just to troll the sport and mock the league some more. Feck it, send a whole camera crew – it’s not as if a thing woukd happen.Â
Southamoton admitted to spying on two prior occasions; and then sent an intern to spy again. Their players lawsuit against the board will surely be a slam dunk.