Southampton manager Tonda Eckert given six-week suspended ban for Spygate scandal

Southampton’s manager, Tonda Eckert, has been given a six-week suspended ban by the Football Association for his part in the Spygate scandal that landed the club with a four-point penalty and expulsion from last season’s Championship playoffs.

The outcome means Eckert can continue in the dugout, starting with Sunday’s derby at home to Portsmouth. The German has been fined £28,000 by the FA after admitting its charges, with his ban suspended until the end of next season.

The FA said: “The 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.”

Eckert was charged by the FA with three counts of misconduct in relation to breaches of its rules. In May an English Football League independent disciplinary commission concluded that Eckert had “specifically authorised” spying on three occasions last season. Covert missions were carried out by the club to illicitly observe Championship training sessions involving Middlesbrough, Ipswich and Oxford.

The EFL commission’s ruling stripped Eckert’s team of their right to appear in the playoff final and ruled that they must start this season with a points deduction. The EFL, though, had no power to issue sanctions against individuals in such instances, so the case against Eckert was handed to the FA.

The panel which heard the FA case said in its written reasons: “we consider there is considerable mitigation in this matter, most particularly around the genuine contrition the commission considers has been clearly shown by Mr Eckert in his evidence to us.”

Southampton said they welcomed the verdict and that measures had been “put in place to ensure that such errors in judgement never happen again at our club”.

The owner, Dragan Solak, said: “We have already suffered enough, and we appreciate the panel’s recognition of that. We are confident the manager has learned from this matter, and a suspended sentence allows him to continue in his role.”

Solak went on to praise the FA and criticise the EFL. “The FA process has been a positive experience,” he said. “Tonda has been given the opportunity to be open and honest with the panel, and the panel has been able to see that he is simply a good person who made poor decisions. The same cannot be said for the EFL process, and the way they have subsequently treated us is not something we will forget.”

Eckert admitted as part of the EFL case to commissioning the surveillance but denied using the material, claiming “he did not find the information useful, that it was wrong or that he did not have regard to it”. Eckert admitted, however, that the information sought was “sensitive” and that a club “would wish to keep it private in the buildup to a game”.

Eckert was retained by Southampton despite the scandal and the team are 13th after eight games. They would be fourth but for the deducted points.