Southampton have made a decision on the future of Tonda Eckert – with the Saints boss issuing a grovelling apology – after they were kicked out of the play-offs following SpyGate
Southampton have made a decision on the future of Tonda Eckert – with the Saints boss issuing a grovelling apology.
The Saints were kicked out of the Championship play-off final last month after they were discovered to have spied on Middlesbrough’s training sessions in the lead up to their semi-final clash. And in an eight minute video, Eckert, 33, has apologised.
He said: “Hi, Saints supporters. What I’m going to say is not going to be perfect, but I will try to be as honest and clear as I can be. I think you deserve that. For everything that’s happened, I do want to apologise, and I hold my hand up because as a head coach, I am responsible.
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“I am responsible for everything that has happened in this football club. I am responsible for everything that has happened in my coaching staff.
“I do apologise to the supporters, to everyone who has travelled with us, who has supported us over so many games. To the ones who have shared emotions game by game, who have managed to bring us all the way up to this very end of the season.
“We were supposed to play the biggest game of the season. I apologise to the players, who have done absolutely everything that they can.
“They have done absolutely everything in the last six months to bring this club back to where it belongs. They would have deserved to play the final.
“They would have deserved to play the final with you, just like they’ve done two years ago, and just like they’ve done in the semi-final against Man City.
“To see 40,000 of you travelling to Wembley to support the team, the chance to bring the last six months to an end that the season would have deserved.
“It hurts to see the employees of the club, it hurts to see the staff, it hurts to see the players who have invested so much in the preparation for games.
“Those who have invested so much to leave their families at home to recover and to prepare for the games coming up, who had hurt so much.
“To see their pain on the day the decision came in, because it has such a big impact, not just on them and their career, but also on their families.
“I apologise to all of the clubs that have been involved, and mostly I apologise to our supporters. I have come to this football club in the summer as an under-21s head coach, and I have seen from the very first day what this club stands for.
“I’ve seen that the club has suffered a lot, especially in the last season, and that it needed a restart for us to grow the connection to the supporters, grow the connection within the community.
“I felt, with a chance and with the trust that I’ve got from November onwards, I have done everything that I could every single minute of my life to bring this connection back to the club, bring the connection back between the team and the supporters.
“I feel that this connection has grown week by week and month after month. Even more so, I am devastated that after six months of building that relationship back up, the season has come to an end.
“Come to an end that couldn’t have left us in a worse place than we are in right now. When I worked in Italy for over four years, every starting line-up that we’ve chosen for the games was always out in the media before games.
“The reason is that our training sessions, especially the ones before games, have always been observed by the media and have always been observed by opponent teams that we came up against.
“[Pep] Guardiola has spoken about this at his time at Bayern Munich, that it has been common practice in Germany to observe training sessions, knowing that other teams would do the same.
“I don’t want to say this to excuse anything that we have done. I just want to give you context in the way that I grew up in the football world. There are different rules in England. There are different rules from the EFL. And I should have known them.
“I would like to give you context to the incidents that we have been charged with against Oxford. We have prepared the game, and we have been very consistent in the months of November and December in our starting line-up.
“When we were preparing the game, we found out that Oxford have changed their manager, and while we looked into the way that they have played over previous weeks, we’ve also seen that the interim manager has always, in his previous interim stations, preferred a different formation.
“We have decided to send someone to have a look at the training session to see if they would switch from a back five to a back four. Regarding the Ipswich game, we were informed that Ipswich were training at Eastleigh on the day of the game.
“When I came into the meeting room two hours before kickoff to prepare my pre-match meeting, I was shown the footage for the first time.
“I’ve asked it to be stopped, and none of it had any effect on how we played the game on the same evening. When I look back at the preparation for the semi-final against Middlesbrough, we had met as a coaching staff on Monday.
“While we prepared for the game, we also wanted to find out if Middlesbrough would play with Hayden Hackney and if he would be back fit for the game.
“We had decided on Monday to send somebody to observe a training session and find out if he would be available for the game or not.
“We have trained on Tuesday, and we have finished our preparation on Wednesday. On Wednesday, we have given the starting lineup to our players, and we have finished our tactical preparation.
“We have disclosed our training session, and we have disclosed our meeting from Wednesday to show. And this is the bitter irony of the cases.
“None of what has happened had any effect on the sporting performance. I don’t want to use this as an excuse, but just as much as I promise honesty and clarity, I also want to give you a little bit of context.
“I think you deserve to have some context to what has happened. It has been the players, and it has always been the players.
“In every single game, it is the players who have made the difference. It has been the players who, for many months, have sacrificed everything in their private life to put this football club back in the Premier League.
“I am a young coach. I have made a mistake, and I take full responsibility. I want to thank Dragan and the board for the support, especially in times like this.
“With everything that I have said, without script and without a predefined statement. Speaking to you from the heart, I hope that you have an overview of what has happened over the last weeks.
“I hope that over time you can understand and forgive, and I hope to see you all soon.”
Southampton owner Solak has already insisted he will not sack Eckert. “I think he deserves a second chance and I would give it to him,” the Serb businessman told BBC Sport.
“My full support would be behind him actually, because I think he’s a super-talented manager.”
Southampton will kick off in the Championship again next season.