{"id":631209,"date":"2026-09-21T07:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631209\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T07:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:54:09","slug":"spygate-southampton-and-tonda-eckert-await-fa-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631209\/","title":{"rendered":"Spygate: Southampton and Tonda Eckert await FA ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parsons is more forthright on whether the club has been punished enough.<\/p>\n

“We don’t know what the FA will actually hand out,” he says. “It could be a long ban. It could be a short ban. It could be a suspended sentence.<\/p>\n

“What we hope as a club is they actually recognise where we are at the moment, and what we’ve already been through, because I think it has to be taken into account. I really feel like we’ve taken enough. We’ve been hurt. I think it’s one of the largest sanctions ever when it comes to football, or even sporting, history.<\/p>\n

“This isn’t just about the club, this is about people. We lose money not being in the Premier League, but [local] businesses lose money. We had to spend a huge amount on legal fees, and it really impacts the club even further. We don’t want to be seen as a victim of this. We need to get on. We’ve had our cards dealt.”<\/p>\n

When it is put to Parsons that the EFL’s punishments applied to the club – rather than Eckert himself – he says: “I think it’s impossible to sanction the manager without the club getting hurt even more.”<\/p>\n

The most recent precedent for this case came at the 2024 Olympics women’s tournament, when Fifa banned Bev Priestman – Canada’s head coach – from all football for a year,<\/a> after opponents New Zealand were spied on. <\/p>\n

Parsons insists “the Canadian case is very different” but if Eckert , who is only contracted until the end of the season, is also banned, how long would it have to be for the club to look elsewhere for a new coach?<\/p>\n

“We don’t know,” he says, firmly denying having approached other coaches in case Eckert has to leave. Parsons also says the club may appeal if the ruling goes against them.<\/p>\n

“We can’t worry about something we can’t control at the moment,” he says. “We have to deal with it when we get there but we’re hoping that they look at it sensibly.”<\/p>\n

Parsons says the club’s ownership “want” to back Eckert.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been through an entire transfer window when it comes to recruiting players for Tonda, and that’s another challenge.<\/p>\n

“We have to be looking at all scenarios. We’ve always spoken about any punishment being disproportionate…You’re looking for fairness in approach. And have we had that treatment to us, from a disproportionate punishment? Well, I think a lot of people will view it that way. But do we want to sit there moaning about it? No.<\/p>\n

“But it’s going to be really tough to take if we get another punishment, on top of being thrown out of the play-offs, four points this season, and potentially more. So we’re really hoping that the FA, the panel, are looking as this with a balanced view to what’s already happened, because it’s been really heavy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parsons is more forthright on whether the club has been punished enough. “We don’t know what the FA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-631209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}