Kim Hellberg reacts to Southampton’s Spygate punishment, fans, players and preparations

Kim Hellberg reacts to Southampton’s Spygate punishment, the fans, the players and preparations for the final at Wembley.

After Southampton failed in their appeal to overturn their expulsion, Middlesbrough are to take on Hull City in Saturday’s Championship playoff final at Wembley.

An independent commission have handed the Saints a four point deduction for the 2026/27 season, after the club admitted to three spying charges.

Have a watch of what he had to say in his near 40 minute press conference below…

Kim began: A lot of emotions, been, like you said, a crazy time. It’s been back and forth, a lot of different emotions from losing the game to everything being involved, trying to keep your head in the game for what may happen. It’s been a lot of emotions and I’m very happy to be here.

Question: We saw the emotions pouring out of you after the second leg and your players as well. And after the first leg you claimed that Southampton had cheated. When you see the punishment now, do you think it’s fair? you feel vindicated?

Kim: I think punishment for me is not to decide and I was never talking about punishment when I talked about it either. I talked about my emotions and I think that’s football, that’s emotions and that’s what I tried to be since I arrived here. I tried to be honest, tried to be open, not using the not comment or not being like that. I’m just trying to be open with my emotions. It was never about anything else than that. And I think you can look at it again. That’s what I talked about from my point of view. So I have nothing to do with the decision or punishment of what is right or wrong. I just talked about my emotions through the situation.

Question: I think the biggest question over the last week or so is about your players, how are they mentally and now many of are going to play in what is arguably the biggest game of their careers. Where are they mentally ahead of it?

Kim: Very difficult to know to be fair. think after that emotion you have after the Southampton game away from home and all those things that come with that and during that time it was very very tough and like you can see a lot of players and then it’s been like just back and forth where we try to keep them here but it’s been impossible to train. We said we had a meeting with them here on Monday after the weekend to try to just see where we’re at but it’s been very, very difficult and of course from yesterday when it’s 100 % clear we could start trying to get to go and try to focus on the game that we’re going to play that is, like you said, the biggest for most of the players and of course for the coaches.

Question: Well, obviously going to Wembley, which should be such a proud and exciting moment for you, the players and the fans. Has this whole saga taken any of the gloss off that?

Kim: For me personally, for the team, I would say no. I think we… it’s a special one because there so many ups and downs with feelings and emotions. So I think the head is tired. It’s also for me been a very, very long season. started competing in February last year. It’s been moving on from that day to today with the two weeks break I think I had in the summer. So it’s been a very long season. I think that’s for everyone. You play 46 games in the Championship and you play two tough playoff games that was, to be fair, very close to each other. Two good teams going against each other. So it’s been a lot of emotions in that. And now of course trying to go into now you try to prepare it so I think today was the day where I start to feel that it’s a competition game again. It’s been very very difficult before today but now today we start to prepare Hull, we start to look at Hull and we start talking about Hull and preparing in the end so I think we have to build it in that way up to the game in a different way that you would have done if you would have been ready from the the semi-finals. So it’s a tricky one and it’s a weird one but I’m still again very proud and also how we handle all those those things has been I think we as a club and as a team as the players there were no excuses after the game in terms of that they were they were strong they were standing up they were fighting, so I’m very proud that we have handled the situation.

Question: Have you felt any sympathy towards Southampton through all of this they continue to say that they feel the punishment is disproportionate?

Kim: It’s weird, Southampton is a big organisation with so many things that involve that of course a lot of sympathy for for supporters paying tickets having booked having think they’re going to go to Wembley, massive, and for those massive for some players that was not involved and tried to do so simply for different things. It’s all simply for our fans is for how the supporters in terms of not knowing when to play the game. It’s been a lot of simple from different things and that is what this situation is about. It’s weird for a lot of different teams and supporters and backs and downs. That is not fair to them, but it also comes from the decision they have made. So, yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of different people. That’s been a weird two weeks for a lot of people that has two different things to try to solve it.

Question: I’m not sure if answer this question but given what’s unfolded, has it made you think about privacy around the training ground? How you might want to protect your team and your tactics a little bit more because it is such an open site?

Kim: Of course you have to, the sad thing is have to look for that I think like you said, think as a coach you expect the days before a home game, I know a lot of people talking about going out to Europe and playing all those things and that, but that’s different story. I think this is where we in football and I think that’s the decision that’s made, that there should be respect around these things and it should not be something you have to do to try to hide and try to be secret with absolutely everything all the time. I think it’s a lot about the respect in that way, that’s why the rules is there. And that’s why it should not be a question about if you can see it or not. It should be a question what is right to do. So, but yeah, maybe we’ll have to look for that.

Question: In many ways you’re the person who’s got to drive the car through all of this. I don’t know if you’ve heard the English expression, how do you get your head around it all? But when you take everything into consideration, everything that’s happened over the last two weeks, how do you get your head around it all?

Kim: No, I had to… I guess it’s been difficult to be fair. In the weekend I had to do something because we were… just waiting for things and trying to put belief into people and it was… I couldn’t go into trying to prepare a game or whatever it was like that. So I took my son to Sweden. That was a very nice… That was very nice for me. Drinking beer, watching a game, shouting at the referee from the stands. I think that gets like also perspective of it and give me some time with my son and think about something different and then of course it’s been from that moment coming home, it’s been a lot of information about what may happen and what could happen and then of course following that. So to be fair, it’s been a weird, weird week and I don’t know if I’m told to get my head around the ramp, but I’m trying, I’m doing everything I can to prepare my team for the game.

Question: Unique short time scale… how proud are you of all the efforts that the club and the supporters are making to give you the best possible support you can have at Wembley?

Kim: I think that’s unbelievable. That’s also one question that was important for us because I think it’s a lot about from our club again respect to Hull for example have a lot of supporters that booked the Saturday, I think it’s a lot of respect to football in general English football that this is the day we should play the game on for us. It is of course not optimal to tickets, haven’t trained for a week since the last Southampton game we’ve been in one day but if that would be our training we’d be big problems that was how we trained, so it’s, but it was important to try to stand up for those things and try to make it possible and everyone around the club has done absolutely brilliant to support us I know they would run to the game if that is possible and they would find solutions to get there. So I’m just proud of everyone and we try to be, like I said, nice all those things where we try to keep the fair in the game and all those things em to play on the Saturday and make that work.

Question: Just to build off one of your answers around your feelings towards Southampton, the boy that was caught spying, he’s just an intern, what were your feelings about him being put in that position in the first place?

Kim: That’s again, that’s the decision that’s made for someone else and everything is not clear with the… So every information I haven’t got to anyone, and we probably know maybe more than someone else. So when that got to get forward, I think everyone will see and understand why.

Question: After the first leg, you described that first half as one of the best, most dominant halves you’ve ever seen. I feel like most of us would agree with that. What did you actually say to the players before the game? Was it an easy speech or a hard speech to give?

Kim: No, it was more about, I think, everything. We felt the love from everyone. The reception when we arrived at the stadium was unbelievable. The energy from the fans, the energy from the players and how they performed over long time just gave us a lot of energy to go in and try to win the game. And that’s what we did. And put up, again, I think, over the two legs, I think, if you look at most of the statistics things over the two legs, so two times 90 minutes, we were creating more chances, we were conceding less, we had more opportunities, more big chances, but over the extra time I think they were better and stronger than us and also the second game was, they had a better second half. But I’m very proud that we played over those two legs and I think we did lot of good things and it was down to very, very small margins. So over those two games I’m very proud how we played, how we acted, how we were strong in defeat and respectful to everyone. So I think that was very, very impressive.

Question: And now you’ve got the chance to go to Wembley. Is it somewhere you’ve ever been before and how do you feel about the chance to manage there?

Kim: No, I haven’t been there before. Of course, watch games on television, but it’s a different thing. So I’m looking forward to it. And again, was today I started to feel like we started working towards the game and worked with the preparation and the time we had to try to prepare as much as possible. You start to feel that it’s going to be a game and it’s going to be fun to go there.