Southampton manager Tonda Eckert is set to learn his fate in the coming days, with the Football Association holding the disciplinary hearing into his misconduct charge more than four months after the Spygate scandal erupted. The 33-year-old German coach was charged in July, and a ban is a possible outcome.
The charge follows an EFL independent disciplinary commission’s finding that Eckert orchestrated a “contrived and determined plan” to spy on Oxford United, Ipswich Town and then Middlesbrough before the Championship play-off semi-final. The fallout has already been heavy. Southampton were expelled from the play-off final, losing the chance of promotion to the Premier League, a prize worth £200m, while an EFL panel docked the club four points for this season. Those four points have left Southampton 13th in the table; without the deduction they would be fourth.
Eckert apologised in June and has consistently insisted he was unaware the spying breached EFL rules and that it had no impact on performances, and he has been backed by the club throughout. Reflecting on the months since, he said the summer had not been easy. “I would lie if I say that the summer has just been easy,” he said. “Of course, if you care deeply about your profession, about the football club, there’s nothing that prepares you for that. There just isn’t.”
He described a lengthy session with the governing body. “I’ve had the chance to sit down and just talk the FA through everything that happened,” he said. “And now it’s up to them to make a decision. I don’t really have any emotions towards that.” Asked whether he felt the FA had listened to him, he said that was his impression, noting that the conversation lasted almost four hours.
On the punishment already imposed, Eckert chose his words carefully. “It’s been a big, big punishment,” he said. “Absolutely unheard of in the history of sports. And it’s tough for me to say that because it concerns me. I’m judging on myself, not an outside situation. But I’ve asked for forgiveness for what I’ve done. I’ve apologised publicly. I think the punishment has been very hard on the club for the last season. And to go into a new season on minus four. And the rest is not for me to decide.”
Southampton chief executive Phil Parsons, speaking in his first interview on the case, said the club does not know what the FA will hand out. “It could be a long ban. It could be a short ban. It could be a suspended sentence,” he said, urging the panel to take into account what Southampton have already been through. “I really feel like we’ve taken enough. We’ve been hurt. I think it’s one of the largest sanctions ever when it comes to football, or even sporting, history.” He pointed to the money lost by missing out on the Premier League, the huge sums spent on legal fees and the knock-on effect on local businesses.
Parsons argued that punishing the manager separately would only compound the club’s suffering. “I think it’s impossible to sanction the manager without the club getting hurt even more,” he said. He denied that Southampton had approached other coaches in case Eckert has to leave, said the club may appeal if the ruling goes against them, and added that the ownership “want” to back the manager.
The most recent precedent for the case came at the 2024 Olympics women’s tournament, when Fifa banned Canada’s head coach Bev Priestman from all football for a year after opponents New Zealand were spied on. Parsons insists “the Canadian case is very different”. Eckert is contracted only until the end of the season, and Parsons admitted the club does not know how long a ban would have to be before it looked elsewhere for a new coach.
Others would argue the FA has little choice but to sanction Eckert. The EFL commission said the club employed “a particularly deplorable approach” by using junior members of staff to conduct the spying “at the direction of senior personnel”, and an arbitration panel detailed how a junior analyst intern said he felt under “extreme pressure”. Southampton’s initial response to the crisis contained “inaccuracies”, while Middlesbrough’s head of football Kieran Scott said the club’s behaviour had been “disgusting”. For comparison, the FA and the Premier League each fined Chelsea £10m this year over £47m in secret payments related to transfers made when the club was owned by Roman Abramovich.
Parsons defended the decision not to dismiss Eckert. “Tonda also picked up the team in around 20th place in the Championship, and without him and his team we wouldn’t have been in the play-off positions, and I think that deserves a bit of loyalty,” he said. “OK, he has made a mistake and he’s paid for that dearly. This has been really tough for him as a person already. I admire how strong he’s been through this process because a lot of people could have cracked, the amount of pressure he was under.” Eckert said he is “very grateful for the support of the club because that could have been very different”, and the backing of the vast majority of Southampton fans he spoke to “means everything” to him.
The club has also handed a permanent role to the intern at the centre of the scandal. Will Salt, recently given a job as an analyst in Southampton’s academy, was identified when a photograph was published of him secretly filming Middlesbrough from behind a tree at their training ground before the play-off semi-final. “He’s been through a tough time,” Parsons said. “When your photo is put out to the public, that is something tough to deal with. A lot of people probably underestimated how that could have impacted a young lad so we’ve got a job to make sure that he’s looked after in his early career. But he’s a talented boy as well.” Asked whether reintegrating Salt had been challenging given his allegations about how he was treated, Parsons said: “I don’t think Will said he felt under pressure directly from Tonda himself. He felt under pressure in the situation.”
Parsons said Eckert has studied the EFL’s regulations but argued the rules are “very grey” and should be clearer. Southampton’s reputation continues to be tested: last week Wrexham’s owners referenced the scandal in a social media advert before the two sides met, and rival fans regularly remind the club of it. “History is history and it’ll be a part of our story going forwards,” Parsons said. “It’s about how we react now. It’s given us a real togetherness and hopefully that continues through the season. There’s a bit of siege mentality as well, right – of ‘everybody’s against us’, so we’ve got to embrace it.”
The Championship is now paused for the international break. Southampton’s next match is against local rivals Portsmouth on 11 October, by which time Eckert should have learned his fate.