{"id":629873,"date":"2026-05-08T00:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/629873\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:02:16","slug":"southampton-spying-probe-saints-face-efl-probe-for-spying-on-middlesbrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/629873\/","title":{"rendered":"Southampton spying probe: Saints face EFL probe for spying on Middlesbrough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The English Football League (EFL) has launched an investigation into an alleged case of spying by Southampton on Middlesbrough before they meet in the Championship play-offs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The first leg of their semi-final takes place at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday, with the return at St Mary&#8217;s on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Sport has learned Saints&#8217; performance analyst was allegedly caught recording Boro training and taking pictures of tactics late on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The staff member was caught, told to delete the footage and leave the area, but the Teesside club were furious and later contacted the EFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An EFL statement released on Thursday evening read: &#8220;The EFL has written to Southampton FC requesting their observations following a complaint from Middlesbrough FC relating to alleged unauthorised filming ahead of the two clubs meeting in Saturday&#8217;s Championship play-off semi-final first leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The alleged incident is said to have taken place on Middlesbrough&#8217;s private property by an individual identified to be associated with Southampton. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The English Football League (EFL) has launched an investigation into an alleged case of spying by Southampton on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-629873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}