Southampton began the Championship season bottom of the division and finished their first day of it in exactly the same place. They lost 2-1 at Watford on Sunday and sit 24th on minus four points, the only club in the division with fewer than none.
The deficit was set in May. An independent disciplinary commission found the club guilty after they admitted watching Oxford United and Ipswich Town training sessions during the season and filming Middlesbrough before the play-off semi-final. Southampton were expelled from the play-offs, which they had reached by beating Middlesbrough over two legs, and docked four points from the 2026-27 table. An arbitration panel dismissed their appeal the following day, and there is no further right of appeal.
The four points were the penalty for Oxford and Ipswich, reduced from six because the club admitted guilt; the expulsion was the punishment for Middlesbrough. A fine was judged insufficient given what a play-off final is worth. The written reasons described a "contrived and determined plan from the top down", condemned the use of junior staff as "deplorable" after hearing evidence from an analyst intern about the pressure he was placed under, and recorded that the club had initially given the league inaccurate information about whether footage had been captured or shared.
The first day of the sentence