Tigers returned to the Premier League with a close Wembley victory.
EFL chairman Rick Parry is optimistic that the outcome of the Sky Bet Championship play-off final between Middlesbrough and Hull will stand in the wake of the ‘Spygate’ scandal.
Hull won 1-0 at Wembley Stadium to secure promotion to the Premier League on Saturday, after Boro’s reinstatement after Southampton were expelled for spying on a training session at the Teessiders’ Rockliffe Park facility ahead of the first leg of the semi-final between the clubs.
Hull owner Acun Ilicali hinted that if the Tigers lost the final, they would take legal action, but Southampton were disappointed when their appeal against their punishment was denied.
Before the contest, Parry told talkSPORT that he hoped the result would hold. We have to move on, the season has to end, and players are leaving for the World Cup on Monday.
“We all need clarity and certainty, and what we have a history of doing in football is looking at punishments prospectively, no matter how annoying that can be at times.
“If you had to unravel the whole of the previous season’s league table, you would never get a competition finished, so that is always a guiding principle – punishments happen forwards, not backwards.”
The debate over whether the Saints’ punishment was severe – Boro had urged for them to be eliminated from the play-offs before the independent commission that made the decision met – has raged since their appeal was denied.
However, Parry is convinced that it conveyed the correct message.
He stated: “I don’t think too many teams will be spying on training going forwards.”
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