Tonda Eckert breaks silence on Southampton Spygate scandal and sack decision | Football | Sport

Tonda Eckert will remain as Southampton manager in the wake of the Spygate scandal that rocked English football. It comes after the Saints were kicked out of the Championship play-off final due to spying on Middlesbrough before their semi-final meeting. In a hearing at the time, they also admitted to conducting similar operations against Oxford United and Ipswich Town during the regular season.

Southampton were also handed a four-point deduction by the EFL, which will be implemented at the start of the 2026/27 campaign. Text messages between members of staff are reportedly thought to have provided incriminating evidence of systemic spying within the club. Eckert is said to have taken responsibility for the spying so that he would better understand opposition team selection and tactics.

Now, the 33-year-old will stay in his role, with Southampton confirming that there are no plans to sack Eckert despite calls for the club to take responsibility.

Speaking to the BBC, club owner Dragan Solak said: “I think he deserves a second chance and I would give it to him. My full support would be behind him actually, because I think he’s a super-talented manager.”

While Eckert has offered an apology on the matter, saying: “What I’m going to say is not going to be perfect, but I will try to be as honest and clear as I can be. I think you deserve that. For everything that’s happened, I do want to apologise, and I hold my hand up because as a head coach, I am responsible.

“I am responsible for everything that has happened in this football club. I am responsible for everything that has happened in my coaching staff.

“I do apologise to the supporters, to everyone who has travelled with us, who has supported us over so many games.

“To the ones who have shared emotions game by game, who have managed to bring us all the way up to this very end of the season.

“We were supposed to play the biggest game of the season. I apologise to the players, who have done absolutely everything that they can.

“They have done absolutely everything in the last six months to bring this club back to where it belongs. They would have deserved to play the final.”

During the initial hearing, Eckert reportedly explained that he had no idea he was breaking any rules because the practice is widespread in continental Europe, where he cut his teeth in coaching.

EFL Regulation 127, however, strictly forbids observing an opponent’s training within 72 hours of a match. Southampton were also found guilty of breaching EFL Regulation 3.4, which covers their failure to act with the utmost good faith toward other clubs.

When spying on Ipswich before their 2-2 draw in April, the operation involved dressing in Eastleigh kit as a disguise. Ipswich were training at the non-league club’s base in Hampshire ahead of the fixture.

The whole saga has stemmed from Will Salt, a performance analyst intern, being caught by members of Middlesbrough’s media team while filming their training session before the play-off semi-finals.

Images showed Salt recording on a mobile phone from behind a tree at Boro’s training facility. He was ultimately caught in the act, sparking one of the biggest scandals in English football history.

Southampton quickly appealed the EFL’s decision to banish them from the play-offs and impose a points deduction, with chief executive Phil Parsons claiming the sanction was ‘manifestly disproportionate’ to the offence.

In a statement, he said: “We say this not to minimise what occurred at this club, which we have accepted was wrong. We say it because proportionality is itself a principle of natural justice.

“The Commission was entitled to impose a sanction. It was not, we will argue, entitled to impose one that is manifestly disproportionate to every previous sanction in the history of the English game.”

EXPRESS SPORT ON FB! Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page.