‘An impossible rollercoaster of difficult emotions’: Middlesbrough boss speaks out on Spygate
‘An impossible rollercoaster of difficult emotions’: Middlesbrough boss speaks out on Spygate Middlesbrough manager Kim Hellberg discussed the continuing impact of ‘spygate’ on his team as they prepare to take on Hull City for a place in the Premier League. Despite an independent board expelling Southampton from the Championship play-off final as punishment for ‘spygate’ , the shadow of the incident still looms over the North East club ahead of the play-off final at Wembley. Asked if he felt the sanction, which will also see Southampton docked four points at the beginning of the 2026-27 season, was fair, manager Kim Hellberg was very measured.
He insisted that, despite his comments after the semi-final first leg, where he labelled his opponents “disgraceful”, he was not focused on punishment. “I think punishment for me is not to decide and I was never talking about punishment when I talked about it (spygate),” he acknowledged. “I’m just trying to be open with my emotions.
I talked about it from my point of view. I have nothing to do with the decision or punishment or say what is right or wrong. I just talked about my emotions through the situation.
” The decision to expel Southampton was not made until Wednesday, a week after the second leg of the semi-final and just three days before they were due to meet Hull City, at Wembley. Hellberg said it has been “very difficult” for his players to deal with the “rollercoaster” of emotions after the defeat on the South coast, and that training has been “impossible”. “[The second leg] was very, very tough and like you can see that in a lot of our players.
Since then it’s been like just back and forth where we tried to keep them here but it’s been impossible to train, we said we had a meeting with them here on Monday after the weekend to try to just see where we’re at but it’s been very, very difficult. “Of course from [Wednesday] when it’s 100 per cent clear we could start trying to get to go and try to focus on the final that we’re going to play that is, like you said, the biggest for most of the players and of course for the coaches,” he added. Despite the challenges, Hellberg insisted that it did not tarnish the occasion, which presents Middlesbrough with the opportunity to play in the top flight for the first time in almost a decade.