FA charge Premier League club over West Brom incident
Southampton have received an FA misconduct charge related to crowd control following their play-off semi-final victory over West Brom on 17 May.
The official FA spokesperson account posted on X (6 August) to state that Southampton had failed to control their supporters at full-time of their 3-1 victory over Albion, which sealed their place at Wembley.
The FA charge alleges that Saints fans behaved in a threatening manner, threw missiles from the stands, and also invaded the pitch, with the Baggies not even mentioned in their report of the event.
While no specific fine or other punishment was listed within the FA spokesperson account’s post, Southampton do only have until Thursday (8 August) to respond to the midsconduct charge.
West Brom need to prevent similar scenes to Southampton chaos
Though the Baggies had the final say in their final match of last season, as Cedric Kipre scored to make it 3-1 in the seventh minute of injury time, it was soon forgotten as Southampton fans burst onto the pitch.
Albion themselves were on the end of an FA charge for less-than-pleasant fan clashes in their FA Cup tie with Wolves [24 July], and the club’s hierarchy will be glad they have no case to answer this time.
Effectively rubbing salt into Albion’s wounds after being well-beaten on the south coast, Carlos Corberan’s team will be keen to avoid a similarly heartbreaking repeat of those events this season.
Given Southampton were eventually promoted via the play-off final, there won’t be too many regrets from his side’s performance in the second leg, with Corberan more likely to use the defeat as inspiration.
Sluggish summer transfer business, coupled with EFL restrictions as PSR breaches loom [Rob Dorsett, 3 August], implies that the Baggies are going backwards in pre-season, but Corberan has a record of lifting this team from much lower depths before.
In other West Brom news, Stan Collymore took aim at the Baggies in an X-rated post on social media.
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