Southampton owner gives ‘over-sentenced’ verdict and backs Spygate manager
· Yahoo Sports
Spygate is a gift that keeps on giving, with now Southampton owner Dragan Solak weighing in on it.
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For fans of other clubs, it has been very entertaining and intriguing to see the Saints exposed layer by layer.
Not so entertaining for the Southampton fans of course.
The Southampton owner has given his verdict on the outcome of the independent commission.
Dragan Solak declaring: “I think we were ‘over-sentenced’. The punishment that the club received was severe and completely disproportionate to the mistake that we made. We lost our chance to win £200m.”
The use of the word “mistake” sounds bizarre to neutrals, as it was a deliberate plan that involved so many at the club and they did their spying ahead of multiple matches.
If you keep on making the same “mistake” you eventually get caught and that is exactly what happened with Southampton. They actually deserved their punish for just how amateurish the whole thing was and how they had forced the most junior members of staff to do the dirty work.
Southampton owner Dragan Solak has also told BBC Sport that he will not sack Tonda Eckert: “I think he deserves a second chance and I would give it to him. My full support would be behind him actually, because I think he’s a super-talented manager.”
The lame claims from the Southampton manager that he didn’t know the spying was breaking the rules and/or didn’t seek to use the spying to his and the club’s advantage, appears to be totally undermined by the revelations of the numerous internal messages/conversations at the club that have been made public.
The Southampton owner desperate though to support his manager: “I believe Tonda that he didn’t know that it was the rule that he was breaking…In Italy or in Germany, where Tonda was working, this is basically common practice that nobody cares about. My personal opinion, and the opinion of the board, is that he is a manager who deserves to be backed by us and to be supported by us. I will obviously seek advice from the team. I will seek advice from the players, from the fans. But yes, if it’s ultimately my decision, he stays.”
Solak though also revealed he had given Tonda Eckert (pictured above) a warning: “I told him: ‘You almost broke my heart. You do it again, you’ll kill me. The next time I see you in July, if you don’t know the EFL book of rules by heart, you can’t work for me. Because, we can’t have another mistake. I truly hope that he will learn from this experience and he will achieve an incredible career.”
Meanwhile, the FA are doing their own investigation now and there is even a possibility they could end up banning Tonda Eckert.
We haven’t heard the last of this and for those of us not impacted by this ongoing Southampton farce, it is an intriguing sideshow to help us get through the summer.