Yes the lawyers will make loads from this. And Soton fans walked all over by this decision.

LOL Surrey Bob thinks Chelsea will play Wall next season!

There is a pinned post on a Middlesbrough forum which is written by a lawyer, it’s a long read but very interesting. It covers what punishment is appropriate and points out that league football is over and that the playoffs are a knock out competition and different punishments may be applicable. [Link]

The panel can do whatever they like and the EFL has to accept it. I imagine they are advising everyone to take no action till after the appeal decision.

Very, very dirty. Gooooooooooooooooooooal!

Nah they can’t overturn the decision - as pointed out, you can’t have people buying tickets and arranging travel and hotels and then tell them to cancel all of those things and then tell them to book it all up again…. Chaos…

Wanting Chelsea to win a game makes me feel dirty.

Rage Gait - they didn’t lose all three of the matches they admitted to spying on the oppo club prior to the games.

Ryan Wintle won’t be at Cardiff next season but was regarded as their player of the season by many. Dunno whether we can afford his wages*

I can't believe that the punishment will be upheld at tomorrow's appeal hearing. It seems completely disproportionate. They lost all three of the matches that they admitted to filming - so it's difficult to argue that they gained any advantage. Frankly unbelievably stupid to have done it but even more so to have been caught - why didn't they just film with Meta Ray Bans????

Time to watch Chelsea -v- Tottenham. I hope Tottenham win as I would hate this game to deprive the Millwall fans from welcoming the Chelsea lot to the Den

I'm sure they will choose the 'independent' appeal panel with care. It is of course correct for it to be independent the law makers should not be the law adjudicators.

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