{"id":658976,"date":"2026-05-09T02:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658976\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T02:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:53:11","slug":"spying-drama-rocks-english-championship-as-southampton-charged-for-observing-middlesbrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658976\/","title":{"rendered":"Spying drama rocks English Championship as Southampton charged for observing Middlesbrough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The English Football League (EFL) has charged second-tier Southampton after rivals Middlesbrough complained of spying ahead of a championship promotion play-off semifinal first-leg clash.<\/p>\n

The two sides are due to play at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium on Saturday, with the second leg at St Mary’s on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Southampton Football Club has today been charged with a breach of EFL Regulations, and the matter will be referred to an Independent Disciplinary Commission,” the EFL said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n

“This follows a request from the EFL for the club’s observations after a complaint from Middlesbrough relating to alleged unauthorised filming on private property ahead of the two clubs meeting [on Saturday]”.<\/p>\n

The EFL referred to regulations barring clubs from “observing, or attempting to observe, another club’s training session within 72 hours of a scheduled match between the two clubs”.<\/p>\n

Regulations also request that clubs “act towards each other with the utmost good faith”.<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

Southampton will get to grips with Middlesbrough in the play-off semifinal this weekend. (Getty Images: PA Images\/Richard Sellers)<\/p>\n

Spying is not new in football.<\/p>\n

At the Paris Olympic Games, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) removed women’s national soccer head coach Bev Priestman<\/a> following an alleged drone spying scandal.<\/p>\n

Two team staffers were sent home for allegedly using a drone to spy on a New Zealand team practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2019, the EFL fined Leeds 200,000 pounds ($376,00) for spying on one of Derby’s training sessions ahead of a game between the teams.<\/p>\n

Marcelo Bielsa, who was manager of Leeds at the time, accepted responsibility for having a club employee spy on Derby’s practice. In a detailed, hour-long news conference, Bielsa later admitted to having watched at least one of each of his opponents’ training sessions.<\/p>\n

In handing out the fine, the EFL said Leeds’s conduct “fell significantly short of the standards expected by the EFL and must not be repeated”.<\/p>\n

The league said Southampton would normally have 14 days to respond, but in this case, it would ask the Independent Disciplinary Commission to list a hearing as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate comment from either club.<\/p>\n

Hull City and Millwall played the other semifinal first leg on Friday, with the score ending goalless. They play the second leg at the New Den in London on Monday.<\/p>\n

Millwall finished the season third overall, with Southampton fourth, Middlesbrough fifth and Hull sixth.<\/p>\n

Champions Coventry City and runners-up Ipswich Town have secured automatic promotion to the Premier League.<\/p>\n

The play-off final is often referred to as the richest game in football, such are the financial rewards for competing for even just one season in England’s top flight.<\/p>\n

AP\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The English Football League (EFL) has charged second-tier Southampton after rivals Middlesbrough complained of spying ahead of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,9663,318440,280188,245588,115797,318441,16309,87954,85,55774],"class_list":["post-658976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-championship","tag-championship-playoff","tag-efl","tag-english-football-league","tag-middlesbrough","tag-play-off","tag-playoffs","tag-southampton","tag-sports","tag-spying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}