RE-REWIND<\/p>\n
The recent international break has proved to be a goldmine for punishment admin, nicely wrapped up on Wednesday night with the latest chapter<\/a> of the Southampton Spygate saga. It sounds like a three-part Netflix documentary \u2013 and almost certainly will be one day \u2013 but for now, here\u2019s a reminder of what went down; feel free to add your own haunting synth soundtrack \u2026 two days before the first leg of their Championship playoff semi-final, Middlesbrough staff spotted someone lurking on the perimeter of their training ground and the EFL confirmed \u201can individual associated with Southampton\u201d was involved. Southampton won the tie and advanced to the final, but the storm kept building. After days of uncertainty and wild speculation, Saints were kicked out of the playoffs<\/a> (and docked four points for the following season) and Boro went to Wembley. Their opponents, Hull City, threatened their own legal action, which by now we can safely assume is going absolutely nowhere.<\/p>\n Much like Marcelo Bielsa, who met similar accusations of spying at Leeds with a weary shrug and a cache of PowerPoint slides<\/a>, Saints manager Tonda Eckert emerged as the central figure in the scandal. An independent disciplinary commission called the scheme \u201ca contrived and determined plan from the top down\u201d, where footage was captured of three opponents: Ipswich, Oxford and Boro. Amusingly, Southampton failed to win any of the relevant matches \u2013 but reports emerged that, in a tribute to Saints legend Kevin Keegan<\/a>, the manager had \u201cloved it\u201d<\/a> when presented with the footage. And who can blame him? His team had gone to Boro and got something. Eckert accepted \u201cfull responsibility\u201d and proffered his wrist to authorities \u2013 but as a relative newcomer to English football, he also employed his own version of the Costanza defence<\/a>. Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?<\/p>\n Tonda Eckert, neatly illustrating that par. Photograph: Cody Froggatt\/PA<\/p>\n Eckert\u2019s prospects looked bleak, but he was fortunate that Southampton had a supportive owner with a name straight out of a Bond film. Dragan Solak declared himself ready to \u201cclose the chapter and look ahead together\u201d, pending final sanctions. Away fans kept bringing their binoculars<\/a> to St Mary\u2019s, but this gripping espionage tale lacked a final act until the latest verdict, when Eckert was hit with, er, a suspended six-week ban<\/a> and \u00a328,000 fine. The FA\u2019s lawyers had targeted a potential nine-month suspension, later reduced to three months \u2013 but the independent panel found Eckert to be a \u201cparticularly impressive witness\u201d who showed \u201cgenuine contrition\u201d. So long as he can avoid concocting a similar scheme in future, Eckert will serve no ban at all; he will be in the dugout for Sunday\u2019s derby against Portsmouth.<\/p>\n Despite the points deduction, Southampton already sit in mid-table and look a decent bet for promotion. Our preferred punishment \u2013 making this<\/a> the permanent club crest \u2013 has also failed to materialise. A genuinely huge story at the time, Spygate will go down as one of football\u2019s stranger and more pointless transgressions, its final act dwarfed by the news of Manchester City\u2019s many, many charges. In the end, perhaps there was no point prolonging Eckert\u2019s spell in limbo. Even if he was banned from attending Southampton\u2019s training sessions in person, we\u2019re pretty sure he would have found a way around it.<\/p>\n LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE<\/p>\n Ed Aarons is answering your questions about the Premier League as we type in this Conversation Q&A<\/a>.<\/p>\n RECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBING<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a threat but do sign up to get the Sport in Focus newsletter<\/a>, landing in your inbox every Friday at 12pm BST, featuring a selection of the absolute best photos of the week. Disclaimer: definitely not a threat.<\/p>\n This kind of good stuff. Photograph: Rodrigo Valle\/ReutersQUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n \u201cIt is difficult to recognise this team from the one that played just a few months ago. One might think that the [Geopolitics] World Cup was an illusion\u201d \u2013 TV Azteca\u2019s \u00c1lvaro L\u00f3pez Sordo laments the end of Mexico\u2019s honeymoon<\/a> under new boss Rafa M\u00e1rquez after a run of defeats that had one front-page headline audibly sighing: \u201c\u00a1Qu\u00e9 Horror!\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markRe: yesterday\u2019s Football Daily<\/a>. While enjoying the contrast between the departing Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, I\u2019d politely draw your attention to two other veterans of the game: Robert Lewandowski and Luka Modric. They seem able to focus on what they are paid to do \u2013 play football\u201d \u2013 Diana Brighouse.<\/p>\n double quotation markThis message may be later than a Mark Dennis tackle, but a comment on a recentish podcast about teammates with rhyming names reminded me of a Manchester United youth XI of the 1950s that featured Nobby Stiles, John Giles, Harold Batt and Tommy Spratt. This gem of information came from Tommy who owned the newsagent in Timperley village when I moved there in 1970\u201d \u2013 David Campion [have any other former footballers given you similar tidbits of trivia? \u2013 Football Daily Ed].<\/p>\n double quotation markAlthough I\u2019m an England fan, I enjoyed seeing the picture of an ecstatic Gary Caldwell celebrating his winner for Scotland v France back in 2006 (yesterday\u2019s Memory Lane, full email edition). I\u2019m also a Wigan Athletic fan and poor Gary hasn\u2019t had much to smile about this season, with the team firmly stuck at the bottom of League One, plus he\u2019s had to deal with the desperately sad loss of his goalkeeping coach and good friend Kevin Miller. Here\u2019s hoping the turnaround starts on Saturday at Stevenage. Up the [redacted] Tics!\u201d \u2013 Adam Clark.<\/p>\n If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com<\/a>. Today\u2019s letter o\u2019 the day goes to \u2026 Adam Clark, who wins a copy of Games of My Life<\/a> by Sir Alex Ferguson. It\u2019s out now and available in The Guardian Bookshop<\/a> alongside loads of other great football titles. Terms and conditions for our competitions are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RE-REWIND The recent international break has proved to be a goldmine for punishment admin, nicely wrapped up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-920827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920827","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=920827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}