Southampton’s head coach Tonda Eckert charged by FA over ‘Spygate’ scandal

Southampton’s head coach Tonda Eckert has been charged by the Football Association over the ‘Spygate’ scandal. Saints were thrown out of the Championship play-offs by the EFL in May over the affair and docked four points for the coming season. The club admitted spying on a training session held by play-off opponents Middlesbrough in May, and on sessions at Ipswich and Oxford earlier in the season. On May 21 the FA confirmed it was investigating the matter, and on Wednesday it announced charges had been brought. Last month Eckert finally made a clear public statement admitting his role in the scandal. Southampton admitted charges of spying and were also found guilty of filming training sessions involving Oxford United in December ⁠and Ipswich Town in April during the regular ​season, before the incident at Middlesbrough when a young analyst was caught videoing Boro’s training session ahead of their play-off semi-final. As well as losing their place in the final, Southampton ⁠were deducted four points from the start of next season in England’s second tier. After the EFL’s independent commission confirmed the manager was at the heart of the controversy, Eckert spoke out in a message posted on Southampton’s social media. “Hi, Saints supporters,” he began. “What I’m going to say is not going to be perfect, but I will try to be as honest and clear as I can be. I think you deserve that. “For everything that’s happened, I do want to apologise, and I hold my hand up because as a head coach, I am responsible. I am responsible for everything that has happened in this football club. I am responsible for everything that has happened in my coaching staff. “I do apologise to the supporters, to everyone who has travelled with us, who has supported us over so many games. To the ones who have shared emotions game by game, who have managed to bring us all the way up to this very end of the season. “We were supposed to play the biggest game of the season. I apologise to the players, who have done absolutely everything that they can. They have done absolutely everything in the last six months to bring this club back to where it belongs. They would have deserved to play the final.” In the eight-minute video, Eckert also apologised to “all of the clubs involved”. He pointed to the different culture of football in Europe, where spying on opponents is more commonplace and there are few rules to prevent it. “When I worked in Italy for over four years, every starting line-up that we’ve chosen for the games was always out in the media before games,” Eckert said. “The reason is that our training sessions, especially the ones before games, have always been observed by the media and have always been observed by opponent teams that we came up against. [Pep] Guardiola has spoken about this at his time at Bayern Munich, that it has been common practice in Germany to observe training sessions, knowing that other teams would do the same. “I don’t want to say this to excuse anything that we have done. I just want to give you context in the way that I grew up in the football world. There are different rules in England. There are different rules from the EFL. And I should have known them.” Southampton owner Dragan Solak said Eckert will not be sacked by the club . “In Italy or in Germany, where Tonda was working, this is basically common practice that nobody cares about,” Solak explained.