Leeds fined £200k for spygate scandal

Leeds United last night accepted a £200,000 fine over the “Spygate” scandal as an unprecedented Football League investigation demanded by 11 rival clubs reached its conclusion.

The Championship highflyers also agreed to support a new EFL regulation that makes it clear clubs will be “expressly prohibited from viewing opposition training in the 72 hours immediately prior to a fixture, unless invited to do so”.

Shaun Harvey, the outgoing EFL chief executive, said the league was compelled formally to reprimand the club to send out a “clear deterrent”. For the second time in the saga, Leeds issued an apology “for acting in a way that has been judged culturally unacceptable in the English game”.

Other Championship clubs wrote to the EFL to demand an inquiry after a member of Leeds’ staff was found observing Derby County’s training session before the clubs’ league game at Elland Road last month.

Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds manager, has since admitted spying on the training sessions of all his team’s Championship opponents this season and took full responsibility for the incident.

Harvey indicated there had been difficulty establishing an appropriate punishment, but EFL executives had reached the conclusion that the conduct was a breach of a league regulation that stipulates “each club shall behave towards each other club and the League with the utmost good faith”.

“The facts of this particular case were not ones we would have expected – and have to deal with a complaint about – and it is clearly impossible to have a specific set of regulations that will apply in all circumstances of poor conduct, so, this charge was brought under a general regulation,” Harvey said. “In doing this, the EFL has demonstrated we have appropriate provisions in place to protect our competitions and apply to all clubs.”

Leeds said in a statement: “We accept that whilst we have not broken any specific rule, we have fallen short of the standard expected by the EFL.”