Southampton issue a statement as Spygate WhatsApps are revealed in a new written reasons report by the League Arbitration Panel.
On the 21st of May, the Independent Disciplinary Commission’s written reasons emerged, with Southampton and Tonda Eckert condemned, and the intern saying he was ‘pressured’ into carrying out operations.
Southampton admitted to all charges against them, hoping that by cooperating, it would help their case, only to be unsuccessfully argued that there was no sporting advantage to spying on three Championship clubs.
The Saints tried to argue a £200,000 fine, as was given to Leeds, was sufficient enough.
It is also found that Spygate was “authorised at senior level and the task was delegated to an intern [Will Salt]”, with “a determined plan from the top down to gain a competitive advantage in competitions of real significance by deliberate attendance at opposition training grounds for the purpose of obtaining tactical and selection information.”
Tonda Eckert said that he didn’t find the information useful, and confirmed he was directly involved, having asked for Oxford’s formation and squad availability from Middlesbrough.
Now the League Arbitration Panel have giving their written reasons, 39 pages long, much of the details the same, but it came with exchanges on WhatsApp. See more further down in this article…
"You legend. Manager loved it"
New WhatsApp messages show how Southampton orchestrated a spying campaign against their Championship rivals.
And how junior members of staff felt "under extreme pressure", and feared for their jobs.
— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonBBC) June 1, 2026
SOUTHAMPTON STATEMENT:
Southampton Football Club notes today’s publication by the Arbitration Panel of the written reasons behind our unsuccessful appeal of the sanctions the Disciplinary Panel previously imposed on us in the EFL proceedings. We accept that the club breached the relevant regulations, and we recognise that the disciplinary bodies were entitled to conclude that proof of sporting advantage was not necessary in order to establish a serious offence.
The club accepts that aspects of our initial response to the situation were not treated with the level of scrutiny they required at the time. In hindsight, we wish this had been managed differently from the outset and this represented an error of judgement for which we take responsibility. Despite this, we are happy with the way in which we admitted the charges and offered our full cooperation and honesty once the formal EFL investigation process had started.
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.
The club is also concerned by the weight placed on assertions that junior staff were pressurised into involvement, when some of the most serious allegations appear not to have been supported by direct evidence. That said, junior employees should never have been placed in a position where they felt under pressure, and the club accepts responsibility for that failure of leadership and oversight.
This case has ultimately been decided on the basis that breach and attempted breach were enough, regardless of whether any sporting benefit was actually obtained. 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.
That is a severe interpretation, but one the disciplinary authorities were entitled to adopt under the rules as written.
Southampton Football Club will now reflect carefully on the published reasons, review its internal processes and ensure that governance, oversight and decision-making procedures are strengthened as a result.
Our responsibility now is to acknowledge what has happened, take ownership of the lessons it brings, and use this experience to strengthen our judgement, discipline, and integrity moving forward together as a club.
See the full League Arbitration Panel’s Decision below…
The Oxford Incident
14. The Club was scheduled to play Oxford in a fixture on 26 December 2025.
15. A few days before Christmas, Oxford sacked their Manager, Gary Rowett, and replaced him with an Interim Manager, Craig Short. Mr Rowett had usually played with a back five. At a Southampton coaching and analyst meeting in preparation for the match, Mr Eckert asked if someone could go to observe the Oxford training session to see how they were lining up and whether a particular player (Cameron Brannagan) was fit to play. In his statement for the Commission hearing, Mr Eckert said that he did not see any issue in doing this: he said he was surprised to learn, after the Middlesbrough Incident, that observing an opposition team shortly before a match was a breach of the Regulations.
16. Analyst 1 identified an intern with the Club (the Junior Analyst Intern) to go with the instructions to travel urgently to Oxford and report back on Oxford’s tactical set up and player selection. Analyst 1 accepted in his evidence to the Commission that, although he had not looked at the Regulations, as a result of the disciplinary proceedings brought against Leeds some years before, he was aware that such conduct was a breach of the rules.
17. In his evidence to the Commission, the Junior Analyst Intern said: “I didn’t really have an option and wasn’t provided an opportunity to say no…. I was an intern and was doing what I was told.”. There was evidence from the Junior Analyst Intern and Analyst 1 that an analyst had lost his job earlier in the season, and there was a concern that they might lose theirs too. They felt pressurised to do the observations that Mr Eckert and the senior coaches wished them to do.
18. The Junior Analyst Intern duly attended Oxford’s training ground, where he was able to observe from public areas and footpaths. During the course of the training session, he sent updates, photographs and videos to Analyst 1 and Analyst 3 concerning matters such as tactical shape and player selection.
19. The Club instructed the Junior Analyst Intern to return to observe the Oxford training session the following day, which he did. From his observation, he knew Oxford were going to line up with a back four, not a back five. Analyst 1 said that he prepared a predicted Oxford line up on the basis of the observations made by the Junior Analyst Intern, which he sent to the Junior Analyst Intern and asked him if he was happy with that prediction on what he had seen, to which the Junior Analyst Intern responded: “Yh spot on”. Within five minutes of that message, Analyst 1 sent the same predicted team sheet to Mr Eckert, which included a section entitled “key messages”, which appear to be gleaned from the Junior Analyst Intern’s observations that morning. After that second session, the Junior Analyst Intern had a telephone conversation with Mr Eckert and Analyst 3 when he answered questions about what he had observed, including line up.
20. Whilst Mr Eckert said that he did not personally view the footage from the training session and maintained that the information obtained had no impact on the match preparation, during the period of observation and following the provision of some information, Analyst 1 messaged the Junior Analyst Intern on WhatsApp: “Try and make out as much as you can please. You legend. Manager loved it.”
21. Southampton lost the fixture to Oxford 1-2.
The Ipswich Incident
22. The Club was scheduled to play Ipswich in a home fixture on the evening of 28 April 2026. In preparation, Ipswich trained at Eastleigh Football Club (“Eastleigh”) prior to the match. The evidence before the Commission was that Southampton and Eastleigh had a close working relationship.
23. Mr Eckert’s evidence before the Commission was that he had understood that someone from Eastleigh had sent CCTV footage of the Ipswich training session to someone at Southampton, the existence of which he (Mr Eckert) knew only a couple of hours before kick-off. After a short while, he asked for it to be switched off, so he could concentrate on the pre-match meeting. He said the footage showed nothing of influence, and he made no alterations to the match preparations which were in any event complete by that time.
24. However, it was Analyst 1’s evidence that the Assistant Coach (one of Southampton’s First Team Coaches) told him that Mr Eckert had said at an earlier match preparation meeting that “someone should go to Eastleigh to look at Ipswich”; and the Junior Analyst Intern said he was approached by the Assistant Coach to go to Eastleigh to watch Ipswich “as the boss is adamant that someone needs to go”. The Junior Analyst Intern felt uncomfortable doing this and said, “No”, and no further pressure was applied for him to go. Analyst 1 also felt uncomfortable: he said in his evidence that he grouped himself with the younger members of the analysis team who were being pressurised into carrying out observations, and he felt pressurised himself. Furthermore, at the time of the Ipswich match, he was attending a UEFA Coaching Course. So, he did not go to observe the Ipswich training session either. But Analyst 2 called him when he was at that course, saying the coaches were insistent that someone should go to Eastleigh, and Analyst 1 called an Academy Analyst Intern who had worked with Eastleigh before, and he said he would go. Analyst 1 asked that he be provided with Eastleigh kit and a legend, i.e. what his supposed “role” was at Eastleigh.
25. The Junior Analyst duly went to Eastleigh and observed the training sessions. Someone at Eastleigh video recorded the whole session on the morning of the match, this was sent to Southampton. From that footage, the Club was able to predict the exact Ipswich team for the fixture.
26. The fixture with Ipswich ended in a 2-2 draw.
The Middlesbrough Incident
27. At the end of the league season, on Saturday 2 May 2026, Southampton learned that it would face Middlesbrough in the Championship Play-Off Semi Final, the teams finishing fourth and fifth respectively. The first leg was scheduled for 9 May 2026.
28. On Monday 4 May 2026, Mr Eckert attended a match preparation meeting with his coaching and analyst teams. At that meeting, he asked whether it would be possible to see Middlesbrough train that week – he was particularly interested to see whether a particular player, Hayden Hackney, was training or not, because there were differing reports as to his fitness – and it was agreed that someone would be identified to go to Middlesbrough’s training ground. The Junior Analyst Intern was again chosen. Analyst 2 told him that he (Analyst 2) had disagreed with this course when Mr Eckert proposed it. The Junior Analyst Intern said that he felt under extreme pressure due to the context of the importance of the game for the Club. He feared that he might be dismissed by the Club or it might otherwise adversely affect his career if he did not do it. So, he went. He felt bound to take videos on his phone because (as he said in a message to Analyst 1 after he was caught), he felt pressurised by the coaches: “With them all telling me they want more out of it than what I got at Oxford as got it wrong etc they clearly don’t think my word is good enough so wallop there’s your footage”. At one stage, Analyst 1 suggested to him that he might not go to the Middlesbrough training session, but simply report back that security there was too tight to make any observations and Mr Eckert would be none the wiser.
29. The Operations Manager made arrangements for the flights and two nights’ accommodation. Before he left, the Junior Analyst Intern was shown drone footage of the Middlesbrough training facilities so that he could get an idea of where to stand. He flew up to Middlesbrough on Wednesday 6 May. The Junior Analyst Intern was told that Mr Eckert was unhappy because he did not fly up on the Tuesday so that he could see the Wednesday training session; but the first flight he could get was on the Wednesday.
30. On Thursday 7 May, he walked from his hotel to the training ground, arriving at about 10.40am. The first team training session started at 11.15am. He identified where the first team were training at about 11.30am, and he proceeded to record three videos on his phone from behind a tree. After a few minutes, four people began walking towards him, and he sent the videos to Analyst 1 who sent Mr Eckert information from the videos including the projected Middlesbrough line up (including Mr Hackney). The Junior Analyst Intern started to move rapidly away, but one of the men ran and caught him up. The Junior Analyst Intern said he was “just watching”, and the man asked him to delete the videos which he did. He then walked on to a nearby golf clubhouse where he changed and deleted his LinkedIn profile because he was worried that Middlesbrough would recognise him from that.
31. The Junior Analyst Intern then left the area and went back to his hotel from where he rang Analyst 1 who told him to wait there until Mr Eckert agreed he should return to Southampton. After some time, the Junior Analyst Intern not having received any confirmation, left of his own accord, returning to Southampton by train. It was while he was on the train that he learned from the internet news that Southampton had been caught “spying” on Middlesbrough.
32. Analyst 1 provided Mr Eckert with a breakdown of what he interpreted from the videos, including a predicted line up and (Analyst 1 said) it showed how, when Southampton built up on the left side, Middlesbrough would press man-to-man. It was predicted from what had been seen that Mr Hackney would play. Analyst 1 suggested they ask the media team to take down or hide the manager of the month pictures online, because the Junior Analyst Intern featured in the background: “The only way they can put his face from CCTV with [Southampton] as he’s deleted his LinkedIn picture. Just got to hope they won’t put the 2
together”. He asked Mr Eckert whether he wished to see the videos, and he said he did. Analyst 1 also shared the videos with Analyst 3, upon request, on the Friday before the match.
33. Mr Eckert said the videos were of poor quality, taken from far distance and it was difficult to work out who was who – and, so, they were of no benefit to him, nor was Analyst 1’s interpretation of them. He said neither impacted on his preparation for the match. Mr Eckert said that they had decided on formation by the Wednesday, Thursday was a day off for staff and Friday was devoted to set pieces; and, so, the videos received on the Thursday had no effect on the preparations for the game. In the event, Mr Hackney was not in Middlesbrough’s line up for the match.
34. The match was drawn 0-0. Southampton won the second leg, and thus the semi-final, 2-1 on Tuesday 12 May 2026. They were due to play Hull City, the winners of the other semi-final, at Wembley Stadium on 23 May 2026.
Written reasons on Spygate sees Southampton and Tonda Eckert condemned, intern ‘pressured’
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