More Championship clubs fear they have been targets of Southampton’s spying

Middlesbrough have been approached by fellow Championship clubs who harbour suspicions that their pre-match training sessions may also have been spied on by Southampton.

The English Football League has charged the south-coast club with misconduct after a member of Tonda Eckert’s backroom was allegedly caught breaching regulations by filming and making audio recordings of one of Kim Hellberg’s final practice sessions before his Middlesbrough side faced Eckert’s Southampton in Saturday’s playoff semi-final first leg at the Riverside Stadium. As Hellberg prepares his players for Tuesday’s second leg at St Mary’s Stadium with the score goalless, Championship rivals are understood to be examining any available CCTV training-ground footage from recent weeks.

Images of the alleged spy, believed to be a Southampton first-team analyst, being apprehended by Boro staff at the team’s Rockliffe Park training base near Darlington on Thursday have been widely circulated. “I think every club in the Championship should be angry because, who knows,” said Hellberg after Saturday’s game. “It’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”

Given Boro are in possession of what they consider “strong” CCTV evidence of the alleged offence, it is understood Southampton will not contest the charge at an independent disciplinary commission scheduled to convene within the next fortnight. They may, however, try to claim the man in question was an intern, desperate to impress and acting unilaterally as a lone wolf.

Meanwhile, other second-tier clubs have shared with the Guardian their surprise at the ease with which Southampton adapted to supposedly unexpected team shapes and appeared able to second-guess set-piece routines during an unbeaten run of 19 league games towards the end of the season. That may, however, have been down purely to the tactical skill of Eckert, a 33-year-old former analyst of the German national team who took charge last November.

Hellberg was adamant on Saturday, however, that his team had been the targets of “cheating”. Moreover, the Swede is adamant that, with the prize for winning the playoff final and joining the Premier League estimated to be worth about £220m in additional income, a fine would be insufficient punishment for Southampton should they be found guilty of spying, or indeed a future deterrent for other clubs.