<\/amp-img><\/amp-iframe><\/div>\nSaints were kicked out of last season\u2019s Championship playoff final and docked four points in the current campaign, having admitted three breaches of English Football League regulations after being caught snooping on semi-final opponents Middlesbrough and two other teams.<\/p>\n
An EFL independent disciplinary commission ruled in May that Eckert had \u201cspecifically authorised\u201d the spying, throwing his future at the English second-tier club into doubt.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old accepted full responsibility and was charged by the FA with misconduct.<\/p>\n
The German coach attended an FA hearing at the start of the current international break and the outcome means he is able to continue his role against rivals Portsmouth on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonda Eckert subsequently admitted the charges, and an independent regulatory commission imposed a six-week suspension from all football and football-related activity, which is suspended until the end of the 2027\/28 season, a \u00a328,000 fine and a reprimand following a hearing,\u201d the FA said in a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suspended sanction will come into effect in the event he is found to have committed a breach of rules or regulations by requesting, authorising, taking, or using information from any observation of the training of another club, in whatever guise that observation may take.\u201d <\/p>\n
Southampton said in a statement it brings to a \u201cconclusion to a regrettable period of our history\u201d.<\/p>\n
The club, who sit 13th in the Championship, said \u201cmeasures have been put in place to ensure that such errors in judgement never happen again at our club\u201d.<\/p>\n
Owner Dragan Solak said: \u201cI\u2019m pleased that the independent panel has come to a decision and that we have an outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already suffered enough, and we appreciate the panel\u2019s recognition of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident the manager has learned from this matter, and a suspended sentence allows him to continue in his role.\u201d Eckert was appointed permanent Southampton boss in December 2025, leading the club to fourth spot in the Championship table after a poor start to the season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southampton boss Tonda Eckert on Wednesday escaped major punishment for his role in the so-called \u201cSpygate\u201d scandal after the Football Association announced a suspended ban. Eckert has also been fined \u00a328,000 ($37,000) and given a reprimand but avoided a lengthy ban and is free to continue in his role at the Championship club. \ufeffGet all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6807],"tags":[156],"class_list":{"0":"post-266324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leagues-cups","8":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}