Southampton manager Tonda Eckert has been given a six-week suspended ban by the Football Association for his part in the Spygate scandal that led to the club being hit with a four-point penalty and expulsion from last season’s Championship playoffs.
The outcome means Eckert can remain in the dugout, beginning with Sunday’s derby at home to Portsmouth. The German has also been fined £28,000 by the FA after admitting its charges, with the ban suspended until the end of next season.
Explaining the terms of the sanction, the FA said: “The suspended sanction will come into effect in the event he is found to have committed a breach of rules or regulations by requesting, authorising, taking, or using information from any observation of the training of another club, in whatever guise that observation may take.”
Eckert had been charged by the FA with three counts of misconduct in relation to breaches of its rules. In May, an English Football League independent disciplinary commission concluded that he had “specifically authorised” spying on three occasions last season, with covert missions carried out by the club to illicitly observe Championship training sessions involving Middlesbrough, Ipswich and Oxford.
The EFL commission’s ruling stripped Southampton of their right to appear in the playoff final and required them to start this season with a points deduction. The EFL, however, had no power to issue sanctions against individuals in such cases, so the matter concerning Eckert was passed to the FA.
The panel that heard the FA case set out its reasoning in written findings, stating: “we consider there is considerable mitigation in this matter, most particularly around the genuine contrition the commission considers has been clearly shown by Mr Eckert in his evidence to us.”
Southampton said they welcomed the verdict and that measures had been “put in place to ensure that such errors in judgement never happen again at our club”. The owner, Dragan Solak, said: “We have already suffered enough, and we appreciate the panel’s recognition of that. We are confident the manager has learned from this matter, and a suspended sentence allows him to continue in his role.”
Solak went on to praise the FA while criticising the EFL. “The FA process has been a positive experience,” he said. “Tonda has been given the opportunity to be open and honest with the panel, and the panel has been able to see that he is simply a good person who made poor decisions. The same cannot be said for the EFL process, and the way they have subsequently treated us is not something we will forget.”
As part of the EFL case, Eckert admitted commissioning the surveillance but denied using the material, claiming “he did not find the information useful, that it was wrong or that he did not have regard to it”. He did admit, however, that the information sought was “sensitive” and that a club “would wish to keep it private in the buildup to a game”.
Eckert was retained by Southampton despite the scandal. The team sit 13th after eight games, and would be fourth but for the deducted points.