• Expenditure rises to £564,000 in 2025-26 season

• Cost of hosting FA Council meetings also almost doubles

The Football Association spent 25% more on Wembley hospitality and freebies for FA Council members last season, the Guardian can reveal. Latest accounts show expenditure on tickets and hospitality rose from £452,300 in the 2024-25 season to £564,400 in 2025-26.

While fans across the country have staged protests and walkouts in recent years over ticket price rises, and the cost-of-living crisis has made football increasingly unaffordable, the FA has upgraded the hospitality it offers to VIPs. Liverpool scrapped plans to increase ticket prices over three successive seasons following widespread unrest from supporters at the end of last season.

• Infantino failed to provide answers to questions

• European leaders expect someone will stand against him

European football leaders are increasingly confident they will find a candidate to stand against Gianni Infantino in next year’s Fifa presidential election, with the heads of the English and German football associations questioning his fitness to govern after a three-and-a-half-hour council meeting.

Infantino began the long-awaited gathering of Fifa’s 37-strong executive board by apologising for failing to consult them over his abandoned World Cup sell-off plan but failed to provide answers to dozens of questions posed by the European FAs on a range of subjects including the Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposal, Donald Trump’s Fifa peace prize and the Folarin Balogun affair, when the USA striker’s World Cup suspension was overturned after lobbying from the US president.

Verdict has been a long time coming and the Southampton head coach has recaptured hearts and minds at St Mary’s

“Hi Tonda, are you a cheat?” That simple, succinct, question cut to the heart of a matter that has vexed the Football Association all summer. It was posed by the Northern Echo’s Dominic Shaw after Southampton overcame Middlesbrough in the second leg of May’s Championship playoff semi‑final and proved the cue for Tonda Eckert to walk out of his press conference at St Mary’s.

Although Southampton’s manager subsequently admitted to authorising spying on opponents, England’s football authorities struggled to decide what punishment best fitted an act some regard as heinous but which others fail to take seriously. Now, in autumn, we finally have an FA verdict, with Eckert given a six-week ban suspended until the end of the 2027-28 season, a £28,000 fine and a reprimand.

• Independent commission cites ‘genuine contrition’

• But FA wanted three-month ban and may appeal

The Southampton head coach, Tonda Eckert, has escaped a ban from the Football Association for his part in the Spygate scandal that led to the club being expelled from last season’s Championship playoff final and denied the chance to win promotion to the Premier League.

The German has been given a six-week suspended ban and £28,000 fine by an independent commission after admitting all charges of misconduct, but the FA could appeal against the sanction after its lawyers demanded a three-month ban from all football.