Re travel & accommodation for Saints fans, the contract is between individuals or groups of fans with the seller, whether hotels of transport Cos. Latter are not responsible for "consequences losses", so no contract actually exists with the Club). Well only for tickets. If Soton FC decide to reimburse, that's purely a non-contractual basis and at the whim of the Club / owner

DO - no problem, there are people trying to claim that it’s because of a huge exodus, but I won’t get into that because it would almost certainly lead us down the “political” road…

Apologies if anyone thought that was a political point - it wasn’t, it was just an interesting population geography point (those of us who did O-levels will have studied Human Geography, but these days we teach Population Geography and/or Demographics…).

A4e - I stand corrected.

'PO Final' - s/b 'PO Semi- Final and previously scheduled Final'

DO - not so apparently, the number of people leaving has remained pretty steady, it’s the number arriving that has fallen dramatically. The Office for National Statistics says “the main reason behind the fall last year was a drop in non-EU nationals arriving for "work-related reasons", which was down 47%. The number of people leaving the UK hasn’t changed much. Just over 640,000 people emigrated last year, down by about 6%”.

RK - Southampton FC. They had spent that money in good faith, based on SFC having acted in good faith - which they quite clearly did not - clearly breaking an EFL rule, causing their PO Final to become irrelevant.

Southampton, im previous message. Just not sure fans would want to throw this

DO, who would they sue?

So'ton fans could also look at suing for cost of tickets to both legs of PO SF and transport to M'boro!

Presumable Southampton fans with non-refundable train or National Express Coach tickets or non-refundable London hotel bookings will need to sue Southampton in the Small Claims Court.

A4e - maybe because British people have been leaving the UK at a faster rate since July 2024?

Airsy - sounds fair ☺️

Wow, net migration is down from 944,000 in 2023 to 171,000 in 2025 - that’s quite some drop!!

I think, with a good push, that we'd have been in with a shout of the play-offs in 2002/03. Would be better all round if they put us in instead of 'Boro' on Saturday

Trigg - also, most Southampton fans probably don’t think they’d have lasted more than one season in the Prem 😬

OI - yes, I get that idea, and your point has merit for sure, but as someone said yesterday, there’s so much money spent by fans on playoff final day at Wembley, it was never going to get cancelled… 💰

Credit to Southampton fans - from the ones I’ve spoken with directly and from most of the stuff I’ve seen from them in the media they are upset and angry with the people at their club who’ve cost them dearly. They’re not blaming the EFL.

Awarding Boro a 3-0 win after the first leg would have been neat but a final endorsement of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland "Sentence first - verdict afterwards".

Timmy, too early in the morning!

a4e - I said I didn't want a team that had lost (to a better team) or a team that cheated to be promoted, which was why my preferred solution, though never going to happen, was scrap the match and promote Hull. Failing that I really hope Hull win it.

That’s victim blaming. There’s a rule in place to protect them already, why should they have to protect themselves against the rules being broken?

I have a solution to the playoff and WC issues and missing teams. Let Iran play Hull on Saturday and let Soton play in their place in the WC ...

TM, stealing is stealing, I can't condone that. However when it's clear others want what you have, Theres a duty on oneself to employ some form of protection if you don't want to give it away. These clubs are vying for the £100,000,000 prize, I'll say it again, the £100,000,000 prize, not spending some cash on screening the training pitch is on the club. If that is interfered with, then there's a trespassing or damaging issue which then becomes a criminal matter. That then becomes a whole different situation that has, in my view, legal ramifications attached to it, not moral ones, about someone's hurty actions in being a voyeur. Just draw the curtains.

RK - exactly my point!