Southampton Football Club was expelled from the Championship play-offs and handed a four-point deduction for the 2026-27 season after pleading guilty to spying on rival clubs during the 2025-26 season. The League Arbitration Panel found the club engaged in a “contrived and determined plan from the top down” approved by head coach Tonda Eckert.
A junior analyst intern was sent to observe Oxford United's training session two days before their December 26, 2025 match against Southampton. The intern sent updates, photographs, and videos from the session to Southampton’s coaching staff, which were used to prepare a predicted Oxford line-up that included a section titled “key messages.” The intern later had a telephone conversation with Eckert about his observations. “I didn't really have an option and wasn't provided an opportunity to say no. I was an intern and was doing what I was told,” the intern said in evidence to the independent disciplinary commission.
Southampton also targeted Ipswich Town ahead of their penultimate match of the season, when both teams were competing for second place. Ipswich trained at Eastleigh Football Club, and a first-team coach reported that Eckert had said at a preparation meeting that “someone should go to Eastleigh to look at Ipswich.” An assistant coach then told the intern, “the boss is adamant that someone needs to go.” The intern refused the second mission, but another analyst, feeling pressured, obtained an Eastleigh kit and a cover story—described in a WhatsApp message as “legend”—to pose as an affiliate while observing training. The analyst recorded the full session, and Southampton used the footage to predict Ipswich’s exact team.
Eckert denied viewing the Oxford footage and insisted it had no impact on match preparation. He also claimed he believed the Ipswich footage came from Eastleigh’s CCTV and that he only learned of it hours before kickoff.
The intern was later caught spying on Middlesbrough’s training session in May 2026 ahead of the Championship play-off semi-final. Southampton attempted to delete images of him from the internet after his identification. In a WhatsApp message, the intern wrote, “I said all along I was never happy about it all & it wasn't right but no one listened to me!” Another analyst told the commission he felt pressured to carry out spying tasks and grouped himself with younger staff subjected to similar pressure.