“Hi Tonda, did you cheat?” That brief question went straight to the centre of an issue that troubled the Football Association throughout the summer. Northern Echo journalist Dominic Shaw asked it after Southampton defeated Middlesbrough over two legs in May’s Championship playoff semi-final, prompting Tonda Eckert to leave his press conference at St Mary’s.
Southampton’s manager later acknowledged that he had approved the surveillance of rival teams. However, English football officials struggled to determine an appropriate penalty for conduct viewed by some as a serious offence and dismissed by others as relatively minor. The FA has now delivered its decision: Eckert received a six-week suspension, deferred until the end of the 2027-28 season, along with a £28,000 fine and a formal reprimand.
The punishment may appear mild, but the uncertainty and scrutiny Eckert endured over the summer should discourage any sensible coach working in England from attempting similar surveillance.
Eckert probably wishes he could return to early May and make a different decision. Before the first leg of the playoff semi-final on Teesside, William Salt, then a temporary analyst with Southampton’s first team, was discovered standing near a tree and recording a Middlesbrough training session on his iPhone. The incident triggered the spying controversy. An independent disciplinary panel appointed by the Football League subsequently removed Southampton from the playoff final against Hull, despite their aggregate victory over Middlesbrough. It also ruled that the Saints would start the new Championship campaign with a four-point deduction.
Southampton had also admitted monitoring training sessions involving Oxford and Ipswich. Ironically, Eckert’s side failed to win any of the three individual matches connected to the surveillance, although they eventually overcame Middlesbrough on aggregate. The EFL’s independent panel was particularly disturbed by the pressure placed on a young employee working under a temporary contract, describing the situation as especially unacceptable. Salt has since secured a permanent analyst role in Southampton’s academy and is reportedly developing well.
Because the EFL can discipline clubs but not individuals in cases of this kind, responsibility for dealing with Eckert rested with the FA. The 33-year-old German publicly apologised in June, although a misconduct charge did not arrive until late July. Another lengthy pause followed before his hearing took place at Wembley on 24 September.
The prolonged process gave Eckert plenty of time to reconsider his decision to send Salt to Middlesbrough’s training base near the Rockliffe Hall Hotel and golf course, south of Darlington. Salt’s main objective was to establish whether Hayden Hackney, Middlesbrough’s leading midfielder and the Championship player of the season, had recovered from injury. Covert work, however, did not appear to suit him. After being pursued into the hotel toilets, he also realised that paying for coffee at Rockliffe with his bank card had been a serious mistake. The transaction helped investigators identify him through Southampton’s website, allowing Middlesbrough owner Steve Gibson to submit an official complaint to the EFL over an alleged breach of anti-surveillance rules.
Until then, Southampton’s manager was reportedly unfamiliar with the precedent involving Bev Priestman. The former Canada Women head coach received a one-year worldwide football ban from Fifa after being found responsible for organising surveillance. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, members of her staff secretly used a drone to record a New Zealand training session, leading to severe consequences for the former England women’s assistant coach.
Whether Eckert has since spoken to Priestman, now the 40-year-old coach of Wellington Phoenix, remains unknown. The hostility she faced in Canada became so intense that she moved her family to New Zealand. During Southampton’s controversy, Eckert’s pregnant wife was living in Berlin and preparing for the arrival of their first child. Eckert, meanwhile, received death threats through LinkedIn. Southampton arranged security for him, while police warned that driving his own vehicle was unsafe and advised him to limit his travel.
The incident generated considerable anger. Southampton supporters were divided between those who believed Eckert had disgraced the club and deserved dismissal, and those who argued that observing opponents’ training sessions is common across parts of Europe and rarely punished. The latter group pointed to a case seven years earlier, when Leeds were fined £200,000 after then-manager Marcelo Bielsa instructed an analyst to watch Derby train. Derby manager Frank Lampard complained after the observer was noticed positioned in a tree.
The EFL significantly strengthened its rules on surveillance after that episode. Eckert’s supporters nevertheless argue that he missed the league’s annual summer briefing for managers because he began the previous season as Southampton’s under-21 coach and only took charge of the senior team following Will Still’s dismissal in November.
Eckert started his professional journey as an analyst for Germany’s national team before taking coaching roles with Cologne, RB Salzburg, RB Leipzig, Bayern Munich, Barnsley and Genoa. He was only partly joking when he recently said the EFL rulebook had become his main bedtime reading during the summer. He also contacted Gareth Southgate and visited the former England and Middlesbrough manager, with the two holding detailed discussions about English football culture and its strict opposition to spying.
“It would be dishonest to claim the summer was easy,” Eckert said last month. “I have asked the FA to forgive me.” Southampton’s board continued to support him and made clear that dismissal was never its preferred response, even though several players reportedly felt betrayed by the scandal and expressed significant hostility inside the dressing room.
Eckert now appears to have regained the confidence of the first-team squad after guiding Southampton close to promotion last season. The club has recorded four victories and two draws in its first eight Championship fixtures. Portsmouth visit on Sunday, and although south-coast derbies are usually highly charged, the resolution of Eckert’s case may allow him to appear more composed than usual in the technical area.
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