London: Southampton has been disqualified from the Championship playoff final after being found guilty of spying on multiple opponents during the 2025-26 season, football officials announced.

In addition to the expulsion, the English Football League (EFL) has penalised Southampton with a four-point deduction to be applied at the start of the next season.

Middlesbrough, which was defeated by Southampton in the playoff semifinals, has been reinstated to the tournament. The club will face Hull City on Saturday at Wembley Stadium, with a place in the Premier League at stake.

Southampton has formally appealed the ruling, sources told ESPN. The appeal hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20, with a final determination expected within 24 hours.

"Subject to the outcome, it could result in a further change to Saturday's fixture," the EFL said in a statement.

The Investigations and Regulations

The EFL initially charged Southampton with spying on Middlesbrough's training sessions prior to the first leg of their semifinal matchup. However, football authorities levelled additional charges on May 17 concerning further regulatory breaches during the 2025-26 campaign. Those violations corresponded to matches against Oxford United in December 2025 and Ipswich in April 2026.

Southampton acknowledged that its actions violated league mandates, which require member clubs to act with the utmost good faith and strictly prohibit the observation of an opponent's training session within 72 hours of a scheduled match.

League officials stated that the formal written reasons for the commission's severe sanctions would be published in due course. The EFL will now enter discussions with Southampton, Middlesbrough, and Hull City regarding the logistical implications of the decision.

Middlesbrough executives, who had campaigned last week for Southampton’s immediate removal from the postseason, issued a statement supporting the league's intervention.

"We believe this sends out a clear message for the future of our game regarding sporting integrity and conduct," Middlesbrough officials said. "As a club, we are now focused on our game against Hull City at Wembley on Saturday. Ticket information for our supporters will be available shortly."

High Financial Stakes

The Championship playoff final is widely characterised as the most lucrative single-match fixture in global sports, offering a financial windfall of at least 200 million pounds, or approximately 270 million dollars, in future revenue for the prevailing team.

Securing promotion to the top tier of English football—the richest and most-watched domestic league in the world—provides clubs access to highly lucrative global television broadcast agreements. It also guarantees sold-out stadiums for high-profile fixtures against historic franchises like Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal.

Southampton was relegated from the Premier League after finishing at the bottom of the table last season and had spent the current campaign attempting to secure an immediate return to the top flight.

Precedents in Global Football

The unprecedented decision to disqualify a club from the promotion final follows prior league interventions involving espionage. In 2019, the EFL issued a 259,000-dollar fine to Leeds United after the club was caught spying on a Derby County practice session ahead of a regular-season match.

Marcelo Bielsa, the manager of Leeds at the time, accepted sole responsibility for deploying a club employee to observe Derby's closed session. During an extensive, hour-long press conference, Bielsa later confessed to monitoring at least one training session of every opponent his team faced that year.

In issuing that financial penalty, the EFL noted that Leeds' behaviour fell significantly short of expected institutional standards and warned against repeat offences.

The current controversy involving Southampton also mirrors international incidents, such as the sporting scandal involving the Canadian women's Olympic football team at the Paris Games in 2024. In that instance, the Canadian program was penalised for utilising drones to film closed practice sessions of the New Zealand national team prior to their opening match.

With inputs from ESPN