I would have thought a £1m fine and 6-9pts deduction next season - whatever league they are in - would have been sufficient

Shirley worse to go back on the decision now as Saints must be cancelling travel and accommodation like crazy.

Oops Citeh

Trig - yes, I was aware but that is one hell of a difference

I reckon the EFL miscalculated what the independent panel would do, I wonder if they can appoint an appeal panel that will dig them out of their logistical nightmare ;) 36,000 fans to reimburse and then try to sell the tickets to Middlesboro fans by Saturday. Even a well run organisation would struggle.

There was no specific rule back then though Bob. The Leeds incident made the creation of a rule necessary and Saints are the first club to be caught breaking it. Some (muppets) on TalkSport saying that the rule doesn’t mention any specific punishment - that’s because with all/most rules and punishments* context is taken into consideration when determining the punishment. As it has been here. If I were a Saints fan I’d be absolutely raging at the club for taking such a stupid risk and quietly raging even harder for them getting caught.

£200,000

Perhaps somebody can remind me what punishment was handed to Leeds (Bielsa) when they got done for spying

The reason I didn’t think they’d be booted out as that I didn’t think the EFL would have the courage to do it. Actually impressed with them.

3 games they’ve admitted to. Wonder how many it actually was.

I’d imagine that Wrexham must be about to launch a legal challenge to say that they should be playing Boro for a chance to go to Wembley….?

Soton were always going to get expelled from the playoffs for this, and it’s the right decision. Such a daft thing to do on so many levels - the intern analyst even used his bank card to buy a coffee there.

Whoever wins now out of Hull and Boro must be a good shout to beat the Derby all time low points total

Terrible mistake by Southampton- can have made no real difference even if they got away with it and they are clearly a much easier team to make an example of than certain others (naming no names… Man City…) with bigger budgets and fiercer lawyers.

Wonder what pompy fans think

£90 one way for borro fans to come down they bumped up the fares already And there’s engineering works on as well unlucky

Didn’t realise it was an intern that went/was sent and got caught.

Sounds like they admitted a load of stuff so any appeal can only really be on the severity of the punishment. (Bloke on Sky reckons it could get worse if the FA go after them for bringing the game into disrepute.) I can’t see the EFL backing down on appeal because it would make logistics for the final an absolute cluster - but then I couldn’t see them expelling them in the first place so what do I know?

Wow - what about the 36,000 tickets sold, can those fans still go to the game….? 🤪

King’s Cross station will be busy then on sat

Oh wow, thats massive news! They need the bloke we used to get us off of our Jermaine Darlington punishment !

And a 4 point deduction next season in the Championship too.

Saints expelled from the playoffs and Boro will play in the final instead.

Gimps could we delete my 16:51 post in case it damages my hard-earned football credibility on here please?

No way!