Southampton's spying on rival clubs was authorised by head coach Tonda Eckert and was a "contrived and determined plan from the top down to gain a competitive advantage", an independent disciplinary panel says.
The panel also criticised the club's "deplorable approach in its use of junior members of staff" to "conduct the clandestine observation"
Written reasons explaining the panel's finding have now been published by the English Football League.
Eckert "accepted that he had specifically authorised the observations", which had "seriously violated" the integrity of the competition, the panel said when explaining why it had applied such a serious sanction.
This was not just because other teams had been spied on, but "because of the way in which junior members of staff were put under pressure to carry out activities which they felt were morally wrong", the panel stated.
"We have concluded that there was … a contrived and determined plan from the top down to gain a competitive advantage in competitions of real significance by deliberate attendance at opposition training grounds for the purpose of obtaining tactical and selection information," the independent disciplinary commission wrote in its assessment published for the first time on Thursday evening.
"It involved far more than innocent activity and a particularly deplorable approach in its use of junior members of staff to conduct the clandestine observations at the direction of senior personnel."
The panel also criticised the club's "deplorable approach in its use of junior members of staff" to "conduct the clandestine observation"
Written reasons explaining the panel's finding have now been published by the English Football League.
Eckert "accepted that he had specifically authorised the observations", which had "seriously violated" the integrity of the competition, the panel said when explaining why it had applied such a serious sanction.
This was not just because other teams had been spied on, but "because of the way in which junior members of staff were put under pressure to carry out activities which they felt were morally wrong", the panel stated.
"We have concluded that there was … a contrived and determined plan from the top down to gain a competitive advantage in competitions of real significance by deliberate attendance at opposition training grounds for the purpose of obtaining tactical and selection information," the independent disciplinary commission wrote in its assessment published for the first time on Thursday evening.
"It involved far more than innocent activity and a particularly deplorable approach in its use of junior members of staff to conduct the clandestine observations at the direction of senior personnel."
