Southampton Chief Executive, Phil Parsons believes that expulsion from Championship Playoffs “bears no proportion” on their spying offences.
Tonda Eckert’s Saints were last night (19 May) thrown out of the Championship Play-Offs after their analyst, William Salt was found to had spied on Middlesbrough’s training session on Thursday 7 May, just two days before the pair met in the first leg of their play-off semi-final which finished goalless.
Southampton were also handed a four-point deduction for next season but immediately launched an appeal which will be heard later today, although Parsons in the mean time has issued a statement to address, fans, players and the footballing community.
Parsons admitted that Southampton had breached EFL Regulations 3.4 and 127 and apologised to the clubs involved alongside fans who felt let down, and has pledged to participate in a working group to ensure proper discipline in regard of Regulation 127 across the league.
“What happened was wrong. The club has admitted breaches of EFL Regulations 3.4 and 127. We are sorry to the other clubs involved, and most of all to the Southampton supporters whose extraordinary loyalty and support this season deserved better from the club.
“We have provided our full co-operation to the EFL’s investigation and disciplinary process. Following the appeal, we will also be writing to the EFL to volunteer our participation in a working group on the practical application and enforcement of Regulation 127 across the Championship. Contrition without change is hollow, and we intend to demonstrate change.”
Parsons however has sensationally argued that their expulsion is unfair when Leeds Untied only received a £200,000 fine in January 2019 for similar behaviour, although Leeds’ action in context only came under Regulation 3.4 because Regulation 127 wasn’t introduced until after that incident.
“On the appeal itself: we accept that there should be a sanction. What we cannot accept is a sanction which bears no proportion to the offence. Whereas Leeds United was fined £200,000 for a similar offence, Southampton has been denied the opportunity to compete in a game worth more than £200 million and one which means so much to our staff, players and supporters.
“We believe the financial consequence of yesterday’s ruling makes it, by a very considerable distance, the largest penalty ever imposed on an English football club. Luton Town’s 30-point deduction in 2008/09 — to date the most severe sporting sanction in the English game — was levied against a club already in League Two, with no comparable revenue at stake.
“Derby County’s 21-point deduction in 2021 cost them their Championship status. Everton’s eventual six-point deduction in 2023/24 followed losses of £124.5 million, a figure dwarfed by what has been taken from Southampton in a single afternoon.
“The largest financial penalty ever levied by the Premier League, against Chelsea in March of this year, was £10.75 million, and was accompanied by no sporting sanction whatsoever despite involving £47.5 million in undisclosed payments over seven years.
“We say this not to minimise what occurred at this club, which we have accepted was wrong. We say it because proportionality is itself a principle of natural justice. The Commission was entitled to impose a sanction. It was not, we will argue, entitled to impose one that is manifestly disproportionate to every previous sanction in the history of the English game.”