Speaking exclusively to Football Presse, Jones said he still cannot comprehend the circumstances surrounding Southampton’s missed opportunity, insisting the consequences have been both sporting and financial disaster for the club.
“Southampton had a chance of promotion and they’ve lost out on £200 million,” Jones said. “Mainly because you have to put it down to stupidity.
“I’m sorry, but that’s what it is — it’s stupidity.”
Jones believes there is no justification for what happened, arguing that the rules governing the situation had been clearly established following previous incidents in English football.
“The rules are there,” he said.
“The rules were there when they were made after (Marcelo) Bielsa did it at Leeds. So they’ve been in place three or four years.
“There’s no excuse.”
The reference to “Bielsa” relates to the infamous 2019 “Spygate” scandal, when Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa admitted to sending staff to observe opposition training sessions during their Championship promotion campaign. The fallout led to a £200,000 fine for Leeds and the introduction of stricter EFL regulations prohibiting clubs from watching opponents train within 72 hours of a match.
Jones believes Southampton’s own situation should never have reached crisis point, and insists the club were strong enough on the pitch to secure promotion without controversy overshadowing their season.
“For a club that was doing well and probably would have been promoted because they were the in-form team…” he said. “Stupidity.
“That’s the only thing I can say.”
The former Southampton boss, who managed the club between 1997 and 2000, also believes the fallout will have lasting consequences beyond the immediate disappointment of missing out on promotion.
“There are still a lot of questions to be answered,” Jones said. “I don’t think they have been.
“It’s not going to be easy next year.
“Everywhere they go, all the fans that come to the stadium, what are they going to be chanting?”
Jones warned that the reputational damage may linger well into the following season, with supporters and rival clubs likely to keep the controversy alive.
“They’ve got to overcome a lot of problems,” he said. “It’s going to take some big decisions.”
The former Everton fullback admitted he still cannot understand the decision-making process behind the incident, suggesting that modern clubs already possess extensive scouting networks that make such actions unnecessary.
“Why they did it, I can’t get my head around it,” he said. “Teams play each other twice a season. They send scouts out to watch games.
“They would have seen each other many times during the season.”
Jones then delivered his most blunt assessment of all.
“Why you need to go and spy on somebody, I haven’t got a clue,” he said. “I can’t comprehend it. It’s crazy.
“No, not crazy.
“I think the word is stupid.
“And that’s what I’ll stick to.”
Jones, who has managed over 800 professional games in a career spanning more than three decades, including spells at Wolves, Cardiff City, Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday, believes his former club must now rebuild carefully after the damaging episode.
“They’ve lost out on £200 million,” he said again. “For a club like Southampton, that’s massive.”
Jones’ comments come against the backdrop of renewed scrutiny of “Spygate” incidents in English football following Leeds United’s 2019 case, which reshaped EFL regulations and remains one of the most debated managerial controversies of the modern Championship era.
For Jones, however, the message is simple — Southampton’s mistake was entirely avoidable.
“But for me,” he said. “There’s no getting away from it.
“It was stupidity.”