England’s second-tier Championship has been hit with another spying controversy. Southampton was charged by the English Football League late Friday with a breach of its regulations after being accused of the unauthorised filming of Middlesbrough’s practice sessions ahead of the teams’ meeting in the Championship playoffs.
The matter will be referred, the EFL said in a statement, to an independent disciplinary commission, which will be asked to undertake a hearing “at the earliest opportunity” given the nature of the issue and with the playoff matches taking place so soon.
The first leg is on Saturday, at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium. The second leg is on Tuesday in Southampton. The EFL said the charges against Southampton relate to regulations which require clubs “to act towards each other with the utmost good faith” and prohibit a club from “observing, or attempting to observe, another club’s training session within 72 hours of a scheduled match” between the teams. Leeds spied in 2019: In 2019, the EFL fined Leeds 200,000 pounds ($259,000) for spying on one of Derby’s training sessions ahead of a game between the teams.
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. In handing out the fine, the EFL said Leeds’ conduct “fell significantly short of the standards expected by the EFL and must not be repeated.”
