MIDDLESBROUGH boss Kim Hellberg choked back tears while pouring his heart out about Spygate.
were beaten 2-1 by in the play-off semi-finals after a Saints employee was allegedly caught snooping on one of their training sessions.
Kim Hellberg was visibly emotional in Tuesday’s post-match press conference Credit: The Sun
Hellberg said Spygate “breaks my heart” and that he finds it “disgraceful” Credit: The Sun
Tuesday’s second-leg extra-time defeat at St Mary’s consigned the Teessiders to another gruelling campaign in the .
And an emotional Hellberg, 38, did not hold back as he called the saga “disgraceful”.
With tears in his eyes, the Swede said: “I have worked for 15 years as a coach, trying to get to the Premier League.
“When you go home to your family and say, ‘no, I’m not coming home, I’m going to watch more Southampton games because I need to see it’, and you’re going into the play-offs… this is the thing.
“If we wouldn’t have caught that man who they sent up, five hours to drive, you would sit here and say, ‘well done in the tactical aspect of the game’, and I would go home and feel like I had failed to get my players ready.
“When that is taken away from you in that way, when someone decides, ‘we’re not going to watch every game, we’re going to send someone instead and film the session and see everything’, and hope they don’t get caught, I guess that is why he was switching clothes and all these things – I can say it because I know it happened.
“It breaks my heart in terms of all the things I believe in.
“They are my feelings about it. I think it’s disgraceful. It makes me very sad.”
Middlesbrough players were devastated after their extra-time defeat Credit: Shutterstock Editorial
Southampton will play Hull in the play-off final Credit: Getty
Tonda Eckert has stormed out of two press conferences in the past week Credit: Getty
Southampton are conducting an internal review into the spying scandal but a potential punishment will be determined by an Independent Disciplinary Commission.
The have recommended a hearing before the final, and the Saints being booted out of the play-offs has not been ruled out.
Southampton boss Tonda Eckert has remained tight-lipped on the matter.
He walked out of his post-match press conference after the first-leg draw against Boro, and again on Tuesday after a journalist asked him: “Are you a cheat?”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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