sadoldgit

Have I missed something? I can’t find anywhere where the club have officially admitted guilt. I see that the club have accepted that something has happened which they need to respond to but that is not admitting guilt is it?

That is my point. I think we are more likely to blame the owners, club, manager, players, ball boys etc than some individual standing behind a tree with a phone. Do you think our club would write a letter like Gibbo’s to try and them kicked out? As for the gravity of the “cheating” offence, the more I think about it the more I am angry about Ayling kneeing Leo and hobbling him than I would be if they had sent a junior member of staff to watch us train.

I know it is easy to be glib about this whole situation as we won, but wonder how we would have reacted if in the same position as Boro? I’d like to think that we would slag off the manager, his tactics, the substitutions, the lack of fitness and the dreadful finishing. We’d have a laugh at Boro’s pathetic attempt at espionage and say that everyone knows our players can’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo anyway so why bother? We’d understand that we lost due to our own shortcomings and find people to blame for not being able to hang on the second place. There would be much swearing and falling out between posters about who was responsible and who should be binned off. The club would issue a statement thanking the fans for their support, stating an intent to go again next year, We March On etc. Perhaps I am just old and senile, but I find it hard to imagine that we would kick off at Middlesbrough in the same way that they have done to us. As I say, easy enough to say now, but I just don’t think that we are that twattish. I just can’t imagine how a bloke with a phone standing by a tree hundreds of yards away from anything of interest could possible be so important that it shares a BBC News programme that led with Trump meeting Xi in China.

The bottom line is that it has all got a bit silly hasn’t it!

The result is not important in the first instance. Did we break the rules, yes or no? If yes, are there any mitigating circumstances that need to be considered when deciding upon a sentence? This is where other things, like the overall performance, results etc come into play. This is why I find it hard to believe that people think that expulsion is a viable option. As someone said earlier, Middlesbrough are acting like a player has had a mild brush with another which has not in anyway affected the passage of play and is screaming at the referee for a red card. Here’s another thought. If it had been a mid table match at the end of the season, no one would give a shit, least of all Middlesbrough. The outcome of the game, and the effect of the action of the cheat still the same, but all of a sudden the cheat becomes the crime of the century.

Yes it is possible, but in no way would it be proportionate and leaves the EFL open to legal action in which, I believe, they would find the decision very hard to defend, given precedents for similar actions. As for social media, that post was 100% spot on. Fox News may have been doing it for years, but not everyone had access to it. Anyone with a smart phone has access to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc. Social Media has a massive reach both nationally and internationally. As the old saying goes, a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its trousers on. In this case it is not a lie, but it is one version of events that does not currently have a context. Anyone watching the BBC News at 6pm and 10pm last night will have formed a view that not only did the club cheat, but that the cheating was responsible for Middlesbrough not making it through to the final. The basic story is that Southampton FC have been accused of spying in a very important football match. What came across is that we have already been found guilty and progressed to the final because of this “crime.” The narrative running across people’s phones is that the club are cheating bastards and should be thrown out of the competition. Context and nuance get swamped. Proportionality goes out of the window. Some people will take the time and effort to did into the story further and realise that it hadn’t been dealt with officially yet and is not possibly so black and white. Most people will run with the cheat headlines. I’m sure, given what we know so far, that we will be found guilty of breaking the rules but that there will also be some mitigating circumstances. No one will be bothered about them. The easy takeaway will be Southampton are cheats and beat Middlesbrough by default because everything now is broken down to simplistic soundbites.

The word “cheating” is currently doing a lot of heavy lifting. Yes it is wrong but football has been full of cheating forever. Players dive for penalties, roll around to try and get another player booked or sent off, waste time, kick others out of the game etc. Are we going to have an outburst of moral outrage every time these things happen in a game now? Of course not. From what we know a young lad at the beginning of his career has been found to have been in attendance of a rivals training session within 72 hours of a match. Apparently this rule only applies in the EFL, but rules are rules. He was approached and asked to delete any data recorded, which he apparently did. That being the case, no advantage can have been gained. Be honest, is this form of cheating any worse than Ayling taking Leo’s knee out? Frankly I would say it was a lesser offence given how important Scienza is to the club. We will never know how much that data would have helped us had he not been caught out. My guess is not very much given how much that totally battered us in the first game. How much did the “cheating” towards one of key players affect us? Well, we went on to win but Scienza was hobbling for much of the game and was clearly not at his most effective. There is no perspective in this situation. One incident had been blown up out of all proportion whilst the other forgotten as just part of the game. Well checking out the opposition is also part of the game, and doing so at 71 hours rather than 73 hours does not suddenly make Southampton FC guilty of the biggest cheating scam in football.

They should wear this on their shirts in the final!

The BBC News report looked pretty damming. Just the stuff we have seen online but it comes across worse on the screen.

Or Traitors?

It’s on BBC News tonight. The final that might never happen as Middlesbrough try to get Southampton thrown out of the competition 😂

As someone said previously, they have royally f*cked up their season and need someone to blame. In truth they have no one to blame but themselves.

I’d say trying to influence a panel whose job it is to be impartial is pretty disgraceful no matter what we have or haven’t done.

Very different offences though. You can’t just put players in the pitch who aren’t officially part of the club. It is a huge stretch to say that the relative offences are remotely comparable.

If the boot was on the other foot and this statement was made from our club about them, I would be ashamed of them. If we are found to have broken the rules then there should be consequences, but they have to be proportional.