Canada sends Priestman home from Olympics as spy scandal expands

The Canadian Olympic Committee has sent women’s soccer head coach Bev Priestman home from the Olympics amid an expanding scandal involving spying on opponents with drones.

This week, the New Zealand Olympic committee publicly accused Canada of using a drone to spy on a training session on July 22.

In response, Canada apologized and announced that two staffers had been sent home for their role in the spying. Priestman, meanwhile, volunteered to not coach her team’s Olympic opener against New Zealand, which Canada won 2-1 on Thursday.

But hours after that match, the scandal took a major turn as Priestman was sent home from the Olympics — but not just for her staff’s admitted spying on New Zealand.

As Canada Soccer general secretary Kevin Blue said in a statement announcing a suspension of Priestman, there were more instances of spying that had been uncovered by the federation.

“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” the statement read.

“In light of these new revelations, Canada Soccer has made the decision to suspend women’s national team head coach, Bev Priestman for the remainder of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and until the completion of our recently announced independent external review.”

Just minutes before Canada Soccer’s statement was released, a bombshell report from TSN said that Canada’s women’s and men’s national teams have routinely been spying on opponents for years.

The spying reportedly included Canada’s gold medal-winning women’s team from the 2021 Olympics.

“Most people see this as cheating, which it is,” a source said to TSN. “Some of our coaches just see it as a competitive advantage and justify it by saying everyone does it, which is also not true. Not everyone cheats and neither should we.”

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