Wednesday 13th to Sunday 17th May – the Howling Shitstorm Days

With crushing predictability, once the result of the second leg against Middlesbrough had landed and Kim Hellberg had finished crying in his press conference, more stuff came out in the Daily Mail and it was the picture of the spy in question, standing in plain sight with his iPhone wearing an outfit that did not remotely blend in with the background. He was next to a tree but not behind it. The additional rage that this photograph was supposed to generate basically left everyone slightly perplexed. If this was a professional spying operation that has been going on in a professional manner, then it was completely shite. If that’s was the way we went about things then how come no other team had complained because he would sure as shit have been caught. In addition to that, the Daily Mail published details of how they had found out who the man was, which was to basically go through credit card records, which is probably a flagrant abuse of GDPR regulations.

As an aside, Luke Edwards article in The Telegraph, where he detailed the use of sophisticated surveillance equipment and SWAT team government backed level use of armour plated cameras and heat seeking microphones, was made to look like the exaggerated joke that it always was. It’s a kid with a phone, in plain sight, not attempting to camouflage himself from a vantage point that is open to the public if they wander into a golf club.

Then came a statement from Mediabrough basically saying that we should be chucked out. It didn’t say that they should take our place because that would be too graspy and entitled, even for them but they know that’s what happens if we get chucked out. I don’t know where they get off on making demands like that and it seems that maybe the EFL thought similar because they released a statement basically saying that Middlesbrough will play no part in the hearing, which of course caused much aggravation in the North East. They don’t seem to understand that this is the EFL’s disciplinary against Southampton. Boro will provide their evidence but why should they have a seat at the table? It’s not as if every other Championship club got to sit in on Leicester‘s financial doping hearing. I am hoping that this is a sign that the EFL are not terribly impressed with the way Boro have conducted themselves with their ramping up of the story via the media, since it broke. What it probably is though is the fact that though they are an aggrieved party, they are not really part of the process. Once the verdict is reached, I expect Boro’s next complaint will be either about us staying in the competition or about the fact they are at a disadvantage of having less days to prepare, or some such bollocks.

In the wider football world, there seems to be a bit less sympathy for Middlesbrough cause because of the way the games have played out. No one really buys the fact that they were disadvantaged by the actions of the worst spy ever, given how the first leg played out, especially in the first half. Anyone who saw the second game knows the deal with who is the better side and who deserved to win. Middlesbrough’s whole case is based on “you broke the rules, therefore you should be hung drawn and quartered for it.” There is no room for any nuance or shades of grey.

An EFL statement left all possibilities open. They want the final to go ahead on the 23rd as planned but they are also making provision to move it, I assume that happens should they decide to throw us out and we need to appeal. The last thing they will want to do is throw us out you would think, as that would be a bit of a logistical nightmare with regards to maybe playing the game one evening at Wembley, refunding all the ticket monies to Saints fans who have bought a ticket for Wembley and pissing off Hull fans who won’t be able to make a midweek rearrangement date. It’s a fucking long way to travel for them. It would be a long way for Middlesbrough as well and I’m sure they’ll complain about it.

As I’ve said countless times before, I understand Middlesbrough and their fans being pissed off with the whole situation but I do wonder if they would’ve been better served by reporting this quietly to the EFL and letting them deal with it, and at the same time preparing for the semi-finals, without all this shit going on. They decided though, to go to the Daily Mail which was absolutely guaranteed to create the shitshow that this has become. I imagine this was a massive distraction to them and yes, we are at fault of course, it’s our guy next to the tree, but the fact it was so big distraction was down to them and their desire to make as much noise as possible…. or maybe this was a backup plan.

As a fan, I have a major issue with the inner workings of Southampton FC and whoever decided that this was acceptable behaviour. Football at the end of the day is a business, but it is about the fans and it always will be. Our fans have been robbed of the chance of celebrating a semi-final win that gets us to a game at Wembley and we don’t get many of those. There has been no enjoyment since the Middlesbrough game. We have a point of reference from two years ago against West Brom where after that game it was all about the excitement of Wembley and ten days of feeling great about things. There is none of that this time around because some fucking idiot authorised the worst spy ever to stand behind a fucking tree with an iPhone. Even if we don’t get kicked out, then I feel that heads have to roll, regardless of who it is, because of the damage this has caused to the reputation of the club.

I would say at this point that almost regardless of the outcome I really struggle to see how Tonda Eckert can remain at the club, assuming he is the man who authorised anything. The reason I think he is very much in the frame is because he is the one who ultimately will be receiving the information from any spying operation. The defence of “everyone does this in Germany“ or “I didn’t know the rules here“ cannot be used because basically, they would just be laughed out of the room and it would heap even more embarrassment on the situation. Tonda’s boss is of course Johannes Spors, so it would be interesting to see how he can escape from this unscathed as well. Maybe he can because he’s not public facing particularly, but I’m not buying that he didn’t know everything about it, whatever ‘it’ actually is.

Since the shitstorm landed though, we have at kept our counsel. I imagine that the gloves will come off if the verdict on Tuesday is the worst one we could get. Put it this way, I expect there are a lot of Championship teams who are de-escalating their spying operations and burning the receipts right now. That shouldn’t be relevant to our case of course, but I have a feeling that if we go down, there will be a few other clubs taken down with us in the near future.

I feel that we will only get kicked out if the EFL have cast iron proof that we have been doing this over a long period of time and I honestly, can’t see that being proven. The alleged whistle-blower that contacted Middlesbrough, is an interesting development, but I’m sure we are going to be paint him as a former employee with a grudge, who said nothing about what he is now apparently alleging at the time. We will see, but hopefully on Tuesday, this whole shitshow will be over and we can at last concentrate on the small matter of beating Hull on Saturday, where once again, we will be the team that everyone wants to lose. It would be spectacular if we are allowed to play and then we lost.

Tuesday 19th May – Verdict Day

Verdict day where the EFL would be in one corner, Southampton would be in the other and an independent panel would be the referee. I am of the opinion that we will get a huge fine and a points deduction for next season in the EFL of 4-6 points.

Radio silence of course as the day went on as we all spent the day hitting F5 on the browser or swiping down on the social media apps. The normal working day finished and I was at St Mary’s expecting to be talking about the verdict but there was no verdict at time of interview at 6pm so I had to waffle a bit about ifs, buts and maybes.

I was literally in the car and just turning right out of Britannia Road when the world caved in with news that Saints have been expelled from the playoffs for the Middlesbrough incident, and also deducted four points for next season for admitted spying in a game versus Oxford (which we lost) and Ipswich (which we drew). Fucking hell. That Oxford game… if anything proved that spying was pointless then that game was it. It doesn’t matter how much you know about the opposition if you are shit and you have a goalkeeper who dives over shots.

Wednesday 20th May – Pissing in the Wind Day

Appeal day. Around about midday, we got our first statement out of the club which was CEO Phil Parsons trying to explain to everyone what our appeal was all about. The statement started off quite well, talking about the fact that we acknowledged our guilt and apologising to the fans for distress caused. All good so far. It then took a leap into a totally batshit surreal and bizarre direction with him offering to set up some sort of anti-corruption task force to police the EFL. Fuck me, I can’t see anybody wanting our “Poacher turned Gamekeeper” help with that mate, but carry on. Then came the crux of the matter which was that we felt the punishment was disproportionate. It mentioned other times that clubs had been docked points and tried to make the case the our penalty was worse than all of those past incidents, when the rules and situation was different. Whataboutery at it’s finest.

When I skim-read the statement, my first thought was that if that’s all we’ve got, we are completely and utterly fucked. It might be a different independent panel but the arguments are piss weak and we are really fucked if that’s all that we are going in with. Middlesbrough fans had started buying tickets at 1.30pm and I would suggest there is no fear at all in them being cancelled.

The appeal officially was heard at 6pm and it didn’t take long – why would it with the piss weak arguments from earlier? Within a couple of hours came the most unsurprising news ever, that the appeal had been rejected and the playoff final would be between Hull and Middlesbrough. The club issued a wonderful statement that we would get our ticket money back in 10-14 days. Isn’t is amazing how institutions take your money instantly and ‘faster payments’ and all that, but not so quick to give you it back and ‘faster refunds’ are not really a thing. 37,000 tickets at an average of £50 a pop, probably generates quite a lot of interest in two weeks. The fans as always, are the ones that suffer, from every direction.

The End… and The Start.

Thursday 21st May – Damnation Day

On Thursday came the written report from the EFL which was full of all the expected stuff about it being systemic and from the top down and a concerted effort. It also brought into focus the deliberate use of younger, more easily influenced members of staff. At the centre of it all is Tonda Eckert of course, who apparently told the junior staff to get on with it when they pushed back about the legality of spying and also complained about substandard spy footage. What a guy.

One of our arguments was clearly that we gained no sporting advantage over Middlesbrough but that one was slapped down by saying that we sought to gain a sporting advantage and that sporting advantage and sporting success were not the same thing. The fact that our spying achieved fuck all made no difference. The intent to cheat was there.

Eckert was apparently at the training ground in the morning to talk to all the players. Brave man. Firstly, I struggle to see how he had a pair of brass-plated bollocks big enough to set foot in the city and also, if I was one of the players who had seen my promotion aspirations go up in smoke because of him basically, I would have pinned him up up against the fucking wall.

The written report also criticised our handling of the whole process once the charge had dropped from the EFL’s point of view. There was arrogance and an attempt to mislead before we realised that they were bang to rights and only then came any sort of contrition for the situation.

What next

The word that keeps coming back to me is arrogance. There was an arrogance that we could do what we wanted, there was an arrogance that we could almost stare down the charges and there was an arrogance in thinking that we would just get a slap on the wrist. So basically, we went into the disciplinary process waving our dicks around and it didn’t end well because everyone else had a bigger one. This shines are very dim light on CEO Phil Parsons and anyone else who was involved in the disciplinary process, even though you could argue that whoever it was, was trying to defend the indefensible.

Now the facts are becoming clearer, it is apparent what we should’ve done to give ourselves any chance at all. Eckert should’ve been put on gardening leave or sacked as soon as the charge dropped and we established that he was to blame – this would have been the day after the 1st Leg. It would not have been an admission of guilt at that stage but it would’ve at least shown that we were taking it seriously and we were at least in some way sorry for the shitshow that we had caused. By leaving Eckert in place, we were arrogantly standing by our obviously guilty man and we were still in arrogant delusion mode, thinking we could blag our way through it.

You can argue about the punishment being disproportional as much as you like, but the fact is that by deciding to cheat, we put ourselves in the position with those with the ultimate power, could do this to the players, the fans and any other stakeholders in the club like the Saints Foundation, sponsors, partners of all descriptions etc etc

We’ve been punished 2 points for each proven offence in the League and punted out of a cup competition where we cheated. The fact that the cup competition was worth a potential £200 million is on us, not anyone else and really should have factored into Eckert’s cost/benefit analysis when he was deciding to cheat. What can I benefit? Maybe a look at a free kick routine or maybe a hint at selection. What could I lose? A shot at £200 million in a two-horse race that we’d be favourites to win, ruining my career, setting the club back years and being unable to set foot in Southampton again ….. yeah, I won’t do that – but he fucking did, because he’s an arrogant twat who assumed he was immune to consequence.

The only caveat I do have is that I do hope it becomes transparent exactly what we were up against with the EFL board. It is well known that Rick Parry the chairman of the EFL, is really good friends with Steve Gibson and that Middlesbrough CEO Neil Bauser, is one of three Championship representing members on the EFL board. There is some clarity needed around conflict of interest but the bottom line is that we didn’t complain about any of that. We have fucked around and found out, we have fucked with the bull and got the horns, we have chatted shit and got banged. Take your pick..

Moving forward, we have to rebuild some sort of credibility and that starts with getting rid of everybody responsible. I do not believe that Dragan Solak is going to be fucking about and taking prisoners. He had to put himself on the Sport Republic Board because they were fucking useless and now he’s going to have to act again, when he was probably happily kicking back and enjoying things going well.

The first man to go should be Eckert and I can’t believe he hasn’t gone already to be honest – I assume that’s because of technicalities and the fact they don’t want to pay him off. All the first team coaching staff would have known so they can go as well. The analyst team all report to Johannes Spors, so he and they probably have to go as well – though I do have sympathy for the youngsters like Boro Spy, who will have had the choice of reporting Eckert to Spors, or going to HR. Tough choice when your boss is telling you to do something you think is illegal. Ultimately, everyone reports to Phil Parsons and there will rightly be pressure on him as well, though I suspect he will be kept in place to sort out the incoming shit storm from all the players, who have been hugely let down. Potential loss of earnings through no fault of their own are going to play a large part in every players thoughts during the summer.

Also, someone has to deal with all the shit that’s coming down the pipe from all the commercial partners who are suddenly associated with a disgraced entity. What was worth £1 million in sponsorship money twelve months ago, is not worth £1 million now and I imagine there will be breaches of contract clauses being inspected all over the place. One sad consequence will be on the Saints Foundation, who always stress how the ‘power of the badge’ opens doors as people want to be associated with it. What does that badge represent now. It’s ironic that it has a tree on it.

We, as fans have all been taken for a ride as well. Personally, it took me a while to warm up to Eckert. I was not in favour of him being appointed because it was another inexperienced manager to follow on from Will Still but he won a few games, mainly down to increased effort from the players, and so he ultimately got the job. He then went on his crap run and was one defeat against Sheffield United away from losing his job and if he’d gone at that point, no one would’ve cared. Then, he started doing the blindingly obvious and picked a formation that suited the players that we had and we started winning and the momentum carried us forward. I still wasn’t 100% convinced because as said, I thought the most of this was achieved just by doing the blindingly obvious but then came the Coventry and Fulham games where he changed up the tactics and we pulled off a couple of excellent wins. Then came Arsenal and another win. At that point, with all the intoxicating results and perceptive changes in tactics, I began to think that this might just be our version of the Special One and that he had something really top level about him. But no, he’s not the Special One, he is a cheating bastard and I was fooled. You can never tell in football of course but Eckert should be absolute toast in this country.

There is a toxic culture everywhere you look in the world these these days which manifests itself in arrogant men (usually) who are usually wealthy and have no thought of consequences. There’s a level of arrogance that makes them think that the rules don’t apply to them and they can do whatever they fuck they want and they never even consider any collateral damage, meaning people who will potentially be affected at the altar of their ambition for decisions they are about to make. There is this unshakeable belief that they will never get caught.

Statements began appearing from people who will be affected by everything that’s gone on, starting with the players. Leo Scienza was predictably first with his response and it was difficult to read. I’d be very surprised if we ever see Leo in a Saints shirt again because he deserves better. Kuryu Matsuki was next, with a statement in a similar vein. There’s going to be a lot of that over the next few days. THB was next, with what looked like a goodbye. It was well written and sincere, and contained an apology for his spy glasses goal celebration, which of course saw him getting battered in the comments. Sam Edozie provided a positive spin by looking forward to next season. The biggest disappointment for me from a football point of view is that I could see in this squad, the bones of a squad that could certainly do a lot better in the Premier League than last time.

What happens next with the players is anyone’s guess. Some will leave but someone would’ve left anyway regardless of how we ended up in the Championship next year. I can’t see Leo Scienza, Daniel Peretz, THB, Shea Charles or Caspar Jandar being in our squad on the opening day next season. I also think there would be other others who think it’s time to get away from this place. There will probably be many agents at work this summer with instructions to find other clubs for their clients.

We simply have to cut out those responsible for this. Any business which loses a shot at a £200 million pay day will sack those responsible. As long as we do that, I’ll be back buying a season ticket for next season. However this summer looks, we will be back in approximately 12 weeks and there will be players on the pitch in red and white, all wearing the club badge. They might be different players but they will be ours and we will support them. Any player who stays will be a hero in my book.

In the meantime, we will be kicked all over the place by the media and by opposition fans on social media and we’re going to have to suck it up until the next big story comes in. They will all be lining up to take a swing. Old interviews have resurfaced already, where the likes of Flynn Downes and James Bree they talk about how well prepared we are and how the manager seems to know everything. Cringe. As a collective though, we as a club have to take this on the chin and use it as fuel for the comeback. Siege Mentality Locked In. Promotion next season should be the goal and four points over a Championship season is nothing if you get things right. It’s not going to be easy and loads of water has to flow under the Itchen, Northam and Cobden bridges before that, but let’s go.

Up the Hull

Up the fucking “Championship Minus Four” Saints