{"id":4009,"date":"2026-05-19T18:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4009"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:36:10","slug":"southampton-expelled-from-playoff-final-for-spying-middlesbrough-reinstated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=4009","title":{"rendered":"Southampton Expelled From Playoff Final For Spying; Middlesbrough Reinstated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Southampton was expelled from the Championship playoffs on Tuesday after admitting to repeatedly spying on opponents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The English Football League reinstated Middlesbrough to play in the Wembley final \u2014 the richest game in soccer \u2014 against Hull City on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The winner gets promoted to the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Southampton was charged earlier this month for a breach of league regulations, accused of the unauthorized filming of Middlesbrough\u2019s practice sessions ahead of their semifinal. It went on to win the two-legged tie to go within one game of promotion to the top flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The league said the south coast club had subsequently admitted further breaches this season concerning games against Oxford United and Ipswich. It was also deducted four points for next season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Southampton can appeal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14><i>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Southampton was expelled from the Championship playoffs on Tuesday after admitting to repeatedly spying on opponents. The English Football League reinstated Middlesbrough to play in the Wembley final \u2014 the richest game in soccer \u2014 against Hull City on Saturday.\u00a0 The winner gets promoted to the Premier League. Southampton was charged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}