Spygate: Who is Tonda Eckert and can he keep his job?

By

Football issues correspondent

Just two weeks ago, Tonda Eckert was a head coach who had the world at his feet.

The German had transformed Southampton from relegation candidates to favourites to win the Championship promotion play-offs.

It was a remarkable turnaround.

And then came Spygate, the explosive controversy which would result in the south-coast club being thrown out of the play-offs and deducted four points for next season.

No-one knows exactly who was complicit with William Salt - an intern analyst - embarking on spying mission to Middlesbrough's Rockliffe Park training base, or similar visits to watch Oxford United and Ipswich Town.

The written reasons from the English Football League will provide the trail of evidence. Until then, we don't know Eckert's role, or whether he was involved.

Eckert looked like he was the man to build a new era for Southampton in the Premier League.

But many supporters and those connected with the club have made their minds up. He is intrinsically linked to a dark period in the club's history, whether he knew about the spying or not.

Why was the 33-year-old so highly rated? Is there a future for him at St Mary's?

And who exactly is Eckert?

When Will Still was sacked by Southampton on 2 November, Saints were in 21st place - three points outside the Championship relegation zone with one win in 13 games.

That is when the club turned to Eckert, who had only arrived at St Mary's in July 2025 when he replaced a Chelsea-bound Calum McFarlane and took charge of the club's under-21 team.

He appeared perfect for that academy job.

Eckert's career had largely involved youth football, in his homeland with Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig. He had also helped the under-18s at Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg win the Uefa Youth League.

Four months after moving to Saints, he would replace Still and manage a club in one of the biggest leagues in Europe.

Eckert's only prior work in senior football came through 15 months as the number two at Barnsley, and three years as assistant boss at Italian club Genoa.

But he was well known to Johannes Spors, Southampton's sporting director, as they were at Genoa together.

So Eckert, at the age of 32 and with no previous managerial experience, stepped into Still's shoes on an interim basis which became permanent a month later.

Eckert won a hat-trick of Championship manager of the month awards - for February, March and April - as Saints not only stormed into play-offs but finished within four points of the automatic places.

Southampton (68) won more points after Eckert took charge than any other club - including champions Coventry City (67).

But just 48 hours before Saints were due to play Middlesbrough in the first leg of the play-off semi-final, Southampton's world came crashing down.

Salt was discovered observing a Middlesbrough training session, and the saga known as Spygate began.

If he is found to have been involved, Eckert potentially faces not only losing his job but he could be banned too after the Football Association opened its own investigation.

Dan George is a BBC Sport journalist who covers Southampton. He has closely watched Eckert over the past few months, from news conference to pitch-side.

Eckert is quite a unique personality, someone that comes across as a very different person to the likes of previous Saints managers Still and Russell Martin.

He is softly spoken, clearly intelligent and typically takes his time when responding to questions, measured and articulate in his responses.

The German was keen to make a good impression with the media after his first matches, shaking the hand of each reporter and camera operator in his press conferences.

This continued for a number of occasions before he was probably told this was not a weekly requirement.

After being asked a question, he often pauses before diving into his answer, causing an awkward silence. He would then dive into his answers with a cool but intense eye contact.

Despite Southampton's success and progress under Eckert, he never got too far ahead of himself. The next match was always his sole focus, an answer that would sometimes get repetitive but displayed his mindset.

That intensity clearly crosses over, some players highlighting his meticulous attention to detail and work ethic.

One player who played under Eckert before he was at Southampton described him as an individual who is fixated with football.

"He's a good coach that's obsessed with details, a really impressive football man and good guy," they told BBC Sport.

As is the way with most managers, you got to see a glimpse of his true personality on the touchline during games.

Eckert bonded well with the Saints fans early on, often fist-pumping the Northam Wall at St Mary's after wins and near enough always doing a lap of applause with the players.

The two biggest displays of his emotion came in the second leg of Southampton's play-off against Middlesbrough, a game his side won 2-1.

He was seen in a heated exchange with Boro boss Kim Hellberg. At one point when being spoken to by the referee he even had to be restrained by an official.

It was a side to Eckert we had not really seen before.

Later he sprinted down the touchline - Jose Mourinho-style - when Shea Charles netted in extra time to, so it seemed, send Saints to Wembley.

The players liked him and were keen to see him named manager permanently. Leo Scienza went on record as saying "give the man the job" after a 3-0 win over Leicester City at the end of November.

Midfielder Flynn Downes also highlighted attention to detail with Eckert in a quote that some have highlighted the irony of following the Spygate situation. The truth of Eckert's involvement - or whether he even know about the goings-on - should soon become known.

"His attention to detail is unreal. Literally every little thing he just gives you," Downes told BBC Sport in November.

"It makes it so easy. You go out on a Saturday and you know what you're doing, you know what the other team are doing."

Former Southampton managers, players and the club's fans have spoken of feeling badly let down.

That Saints also admitted to spying on Oxford and Ipswich suggests a wider problem.

Jo Tessem, who made 130 appearances for Saints between 1999 and 2005, thinks Eckert may have to go.

"Something has gone seriously wrong if you have continued to break the rules," Tessem told BBC Radio Solent Sport.

"Then you are breaking the reputation and disrespecting the game of football, and I don't think the club has anything else to do and they might have to get rid of him.

"To rescue something you've got to make tough decisions, and I think this is one of those decisions that unfortunately will happen. I don't think there's any way around it."

Nigel Adkins, who managed the club for three years and earned back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League, said he did not know "what they're going to gain from spying".

"If you talk about the integrity of Southampton Football Club, that's now been tarnished," Adkins told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"It's going to take a long time to come back from this."

BBC fan writer Martin Sanders says he always felt Eckert was too inexperienced for such a big job.

"It's easy to say in hindsight, but I was always unsure about giving the job to somebody with no experience of managing a men's team," Sanders said.

"Obviously, through these last six months, it must have felt like they'd got everything right."

Sanders predicted: "Tonda Eckert will never manage a game for Southampton Football Club ever again."