A tree, a FaceTime call, and £180 million

At the top of this article lies possibly one of the most expensive photographs taken in the last few years. The taking and publishing of this photograph lost Southampton Football Club, and gave to Middlesbrough, the possibility of earning at least £180 million and a shot at global fame.

In case you've been living under a rock, or somehow have enough of a life not to be a football fan, or just simply don't check the alt text of images on this blog, this is the infamous Spygate photo: an intern employed by Southampton Football Club breaking EFL regulations by recording/video streaming a Middlesbrough training session at the behest of Saints manager Tonda Eckert. Shortly after this photo was taken, Southampton qualified for the Sky Bet Championship play-off final for a chance at going back to the Premier League, and shortly after it was published, Southampton were expelled from said final and Boro were reinstated.

As any of you unfortunate enough to know me personally may be able to attest, I have, for the last two and a half years, been locked inside the flat circle of suffering that is being a Saints fan, and it may not surprise you to know that this was a pretty difficult thing to navigate. I gave that club my enthusiastic support and quite a bit of my money, only for them to have cheated multiple times in the months leading up to Spygate. But hey, at least they refunded my play-off final ticket, eh?

Of course, in the months since, Tonda Eckert has been charged with misconduct by the FA, charges which, at the time of writing, have not yet been resolved. He remains the Southampton manager and retains the backing of the club's ownership despite having cheated on at least three occasions, and in all likelihood (and in my personal opinion for the sake of not being sued for libel) on several more occasions than that.

I appear to be in the minority of Saints fans at this point in time, a few months removed from all the "discourse", in believing that he should no longer be the manager of the club, and in all honesty, I'm somewhat surprised he still is (it remains possible, pending the results of the aforementioned FA investigation, that he may be banned; a ban for a significant period of time would effectively force the Southampton ownership to give him the sack)?

For the record, this isn't a club that has never experienced some pretty terrible emotions. We remain the only time as of me writing this to have lost 9-0 twice in the Premiership, we were conned into bringing a non-League player into the Premier League because he pretended to be George Weah's cousin, and of course we barely beat the famous Derby record in 2024/25.

Much of this embarrassment is, to a certain extent, tolerable. Every club has its bad moments - just ask Leicester about getting relegated back-to-back (or Sunderland for that matter), Arsenal about losing 8-2 to Manchester United, Crystal Palace for losing to Macclesfield et cetera et cetera. But Spygate has been a lot more difficult to develop any real thoughts about, and that's part of why I'm: a) writing this on my personal blog as opposed to Four at the Back (although it is a fantastic website, https://www.fourattheback.com), and b) am only writing this in September, now that things have calmed down a bit.

There's a big difference between merely being bad and actively being cheaters. We're one of the only clubs in recent English football history to have been judged to have actually cheated (Leeds technically weren't breaking the rules when they did a similar thing a few years ago, and most other sanctions have been related to financial mismanagement), and that's put a stain both on the club's reputation and on my opinions on the club since The Incident.

This is a bit of a downer post, and also a bit of a personal rant. Therefore, feel free to take a second to enjoy Bouncy Yaris.

Alright, we cool? We cool. Let's keep going.

I understand and respect why some fans have moved on and forgiven the club; they have apologised for it all, and we've taken our punishment for it, but I think it's also important to acknowledge that this is pretty unprecedented. Not to say that I think about this day and night or anything, but yeah, it still bothers me a lot. We took a club with a huge wage bill and some fantastic players for the Championship, and pissed our only chance at promotion up the wall for the sake of a short-term advantage, while stupid enough to think we wouldn't get caught. I haven't been to a game since Spygate, and I don't plan to any time soon (still support the club, but I don't want to fund the management and ownership that dragged the club's name through the mud), and I know I'm not alone in that.

Of course, let's not kid ourselves by thinking the Saints are the only football club to have broken the laws and spirit of the game. In February 2023, while I was in my first year of sixth form, Manchester City received the (in)famous 115 charges of financial misconduct. I'll be entering my third year of university in a few weeks' time. No verdict has yet been announced. I'm sure the fact that Manchester City is owned by the brother of the United Arab Emirates' president is entirely unrelated to this fact. Ditto for Chelsea and their billionaire ownership. Football is full of this stuff, but that doesn't make the spying much less bad really, does it?

And if I was in charge of the club, I'd end this here with a call to action, or announcing something, or whatever. Last I recall, on the other hand, Dragan Solak wasn't in the business of consulting random 20 year olds vis-a-vis how he runs his football clubs, so if I can say anything, just try, if you're a fan yourself, to try and make sure your club stays accountable. AFC Wimbledon does a great job here, and honestly I'm still of the belief that 50+1 would be a good idea to introduce into the English game, even if it would reduce some of the billionaire funding (oh no! whatever will we do?!).

Ultimately, football clubs make money through support. Without eyes on the club, there isn't any revenue to keep the club going, so use that. We have a hell of a lot more power than we sometimes realise in this sport, especially outside the Premiership. Also, at some point, maybe, possibly, if they get around to it, the Independent Football Regulator will start to step in a little more, so we might have that to look forward to.

Apologies. Rant over. My bad. 😭.

Alex