My football team cheated.
I’ve supported Southampton Football club since I was a child. Southampton is where my father was born, and his passed his fandom down to me.
Then came May 2026, when Southampton FC was in the runoff to be promoted to Britain’s Premier League. With many millions of pounds at stake, they sent an intern to spy on the rival team, Hull City, as they trained for the vital match. This broke the clear rules set down by the English Football League. When Southampton admitted to the breach, and also to two previous examples of watching rivals, against Oxford United and Ipswich Town, they were punished. Their place in the playoff was given to another team, the head coach was charged with misconduct, and they started the following season on minus four points – which will make it hard to reach the promotion zone before 2028.
In one sense, it’s only football. The stakes are low. Even the many millions in pounds they lost have just gone to another football club – so what difference does it make? Some of the mocking and ridicule they’ve received from other clubs has even been funny: Birmingham have marked their football calendar with a pair of binoculars, so fans check their not being spied on by Southampton before their game in September.
But there’s a serious point to it, too. Will I stop supporting Southampton? No, I won’t. I don’t think many other fans will desert the club either. (Fans of an even more mischievous team, Millwall FC, used to sing ‘Nobody likes us but we don’t care’).
So the question is, just how bad would Southampton need to behave for me to abandon them? The 2026 ‘Spygate’ incident has shown that I’ll forgive a little sporting espionage. When a Southampton footballer gets a red card, I may condemn the player but my view of the club won’t change.
If Southampton adopted a deliberate policy of committing fouls which harmed other players, perhaps by training them to commit nasty tackles which sent rival strikers off the field, then I think I’d be appalled. But would I? I’m sure I’d still have a little lingering loyalty for my old club. I may even make excuses – it was ‘bad ones’ who went against the spirit of the club, I might say.
The limits of loyalty are often tested within other social groups – in families, towns, religious groups, charities, businesses, and countries. Often a failure by a single member of the group to abide by the shared rules make the community stronger: people come together to stand against the transgressor, and restore good practices.
Indeed, that is what might be happening to Southampton. Britain’s Football Association and the English Football League – the wider footballing community – have investigated Southampton and are imposing penalties. Football in Britain may even emerge better after Southampton’s ‘Spygate’ scandal than it was before.
But when the whole community is at fault, then what then? And what if the individual can’t be ‘corrected’? Many families have a flawed uncle, a nasty grandparent, or a member who has been found guilty of a crime. Usually, they can’t be expelled from the family; the family has to learn to live with them.
Countries do bad things, too. Some commit atrocities, some abuse their power, and almost all put their own interest above what’s best for the global community. And yet those countries still demand the loyalty of their citizens.
Note there are different expectations of loyalty for different citizens. Most members of the public are just expected to support the country; if that country is a democracy, then they are free to complain and call for the government to be removed. Civil servants and other public officials are usually expected to be supportive in public. The military have an even tighter rein: most are obliged to follow orders, even orders they disagree with. In some countries they are able to abstain from carrying out demands which contravene their own conscience, or the national constitution, but even these escape routes are difficult. Deliberately so: if a country’s defence relied on the unanimity of its servicemembers, it may find it hard to confront an enemy.
But the Southampton spygate case suggests that, even if a country was doing some fairly bad things, few citizens – and even fewer soldiers – who abandon it. As with my support for Southampton, my first hope is that my own club improves. Moving my support to a different team would require a far bigger transgression. It feels easier to be a traitor to my values than to my club.
So, what are the limits of loyalty? If our country, or any other community we find ourselves in, behaves poorly, and we can’t improve it, should we abandon it?
If our values and our team go in different directions, which demands our loyalty more?
I’ll still be supporting Southampton in the coming football season. Even though they won’t be promoted, I’ll still hope they win their games. Even though I won’t be cheering their behaviour, I’ll keep cheering the team and the players.
