Saints expelled from Play Offs by EFL

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Well of course we haven’t told them we did it 46 times <laugh>

We answered the stuff raised in the investigation, we are hardly going to say oh hang on you forgot to mention the other 43 games we did it.
 
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What other forms of cheating do you think we've done, Ian? We could have broken the EFL spying rules in every game we played by spying past the 72hr mark, but it wouldn't matter if we've done it 5 times or 50 times.

You're acting like we've been match fixing or the starting eleven were using PEDs freely all season (this would actually call for serious punishment).

You can't argue that the reason you didn't gain promotion over a 46 game season was because of an intern by a tree. What if we did it 71hrs before a game every time, an hour earlier and it's suddenly completely legal?

There are far, far too many mitigating factors.

For your first paragraph it does matter if the way they got -4 was -2 for each instance in the league. If there is proof we have done it 20 times that comes out over the next month or so then they could say “-40, **** you Saints”

The question is whether other clubs will bother really trying to gather evidence when there is no real benefit for them (like there was for Boro)
 
Well of course we haven’t told them we did it 46 times <laugh>

We answered the stuff raised in the investigation, we are hardly going to say oh hang on you forgot to mention the other 43 games we did it.
Fair enough but i can see other clubs like Wrexham and Derby being very interested at least. I cannot see that we spied on Oxford but not these two teams. Furthermore , the longer we have been doijg this , the more convinced i am that the directors were aware and sanctioned the spying.

I had convinced myself that it was the action of the intern acting alone. You now wonder what else the directors are not letting on.
 
For your first paragraph it does matter if the way they got -4 was -2 for each instance in the league. If there is proof we have done it 20 times that comes out over the next month or so then they could say “-40, **** you Saints”

The question is whether other clubs will bother really trying to gather evidence when there is no real benefit for them (like there was for Boro)

That's not how point deductions work though. Man City aren't going to get a 230 point deduction if they are found guilty on all of their charges.
 
Until the commission's full report is released, I don't think any of us can be certain as to how the four point deduction was arrived at. But it will likely be very relevant information, should anyone ever break the rule again (or indeed we're found to have broken it more times).
 
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Particularly bad light on Saints from a compliance/safeguarding perspective from this part of The Guardian's latest piece:

Eckert, who is battling to hold on to his job amid a Football Association investigation into the conduct of individuals at the club, has argued he did not realise what he did was against the EFL’s statutes.

Southampton gave a detailed briefing in pre-season to Eckert’s predecessor, Will Still, explaining the competition’s rules. They did not do the same for Eckert after he replaced Still in early November.


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How and why is a club secretary, compliance manager or similarly appointed admin staff not taking him through the requirements of the role and the competitions in which he will be competing?
Remember when Tonda said he would explain things (or words to that effect)? I wonder if he was going to reveal that he didn’t know about the 72 hrs?
 
Until the commission's full report is released, I don't think any of us can be certain as to how the four point deduction was arrived at. But it will likely be very relevant information, should anyone ever break the rule again (or indeed we're found to have broken it more times).
Given there's been stuff about it being reduced from 6 I'd be fairly confident that it's 3 for each breach.

As you say though can't be certain. It'll definitely be interesting to read the written judgement but could be some time away yet.