What is Spygate 2.0? Middlesbrough make complaint against Southampton over ‘unauthorised filming’ before Championship play-offs

The Championship play-offs are here and ‘Spygate 2. 0’ has arrived to pack more drama into the Middlesbrough vs Southampton semi-final tie. There is now greater intrigue surrounding the tie after Boro lodged a complaint against Saints following claims that they spied on training sessions, with the English Football League (EFL) launching an investigation into the allegations.

The sides meet in the Championship play-offs, with the first leg of the semi-final at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday before the return leg at St Mary's Stadium on Tuesday. The dispute between the clubs brings back memories from 2019 when Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United were fined £200,000 by the EFL. A Leeds member of staff was caught acting suspiciously outside Derby County’s training ground before facing Frank Lampard’s side on 10 January, with the club later apologising.

BBC Sport is reporting that the incident involves a Southampton performance analyst, with the specific nature of the allegations thought to centre around filming and pictures taken to record tactics on Thursday morning. The staff member was reportedly caught and ordered to delete the footage before being ordered to leave the Rockliffe Park training base. Southampton have been contacted for comment.

Che Adams of Southampton is challenged by Lukas Engel of Middlesbrough (Getty) EFL rules specify that "no club shall directly or indirectly observe (or attempt to observe) another club's training session in the period of 72 hours prior to any match". Manager Marcelo Bielsa later admitted when discussing the 2019 incident that he sent a member of staff to watch training sessions of every opponent during the 2018/19 season, with the EFL stating that Leeds failed to treat teams with “good faith”. Though Bielsa maintains the club did not cheat, and that the decision to observe opponents was merely down to stupidity.