Canada’s women’s Olympic soccer team is under the microscope as new details have emerged about the depth of the use of drones to spy on opposing teams , and led to a decision by the Canadian Olympic Committee to remove women’s national team head coach Bev Priestman.
The group announced the decision Thursday night and placed assistant coach Andy Spence at the helm of the women’s team for the remainder of the Olympic tournament.
All of this comes after the soccer world was rocked when a Canadian soccer staffer was caught operating a drone over a closed practice by the New Zealand women’s national team ahead of the two nations’ opening match in the 2024 Paris Games on Thursday, leading to New Zealand lodging a formal complaint to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit.
Bev Priestman was removed from coaching the Canadian Olympic squad. AP
The COC announced on Wednesday that Joseph Lombardi and Jasmine Mander had been sent home over the spying scandal, citing Lombardi as an “unaccredited analyst with Canada Soccer” in their announcement.
However, CBC News reported Thursday that Lombardi’s role was a senior one inside Canada Soccer.
French police apprehended Lombardi after the drone was spotted landing near him, and he was subsequently charged with maintaining an unmanned aircraft over a prohibited area, which he admitted to and accepted an eight-month suspended sentence, The Globe and Mail reported.
It was during the police investigation that they found messages connecting Lombardi to Mander and found that the assistant coach was aware of what Lombardi had been doing.
Both men’s and women’s programs now find themselves under intense scrutiny after a damning report by TSN that painted the picture of a spying operation that runs deeper than just this week’s events and raises questions over the validity of women’s gold medal in 2021 during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” Canada Soccer CEO & General Secretary Kevin Blue said in a statement after the TSN report was published.
“In light of these new revelations, Canada Soccer has made the decision to suspend Women’s National Soccer 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.”
Bev Priestman head coach of Canada during the first half against the United States in the 2024 SheBelieves Cup. Getty Images
Citing several sources, TSN reported that both the men’s and women’s national teams had “engaged for years in efforts to film the closed-door training sessions of their opponents, including during the women’s gold-medal winning Olympic tournament in 2021.”
The report noted several instances in which staffers on the men’s side covertly filmed opposing teams’ practices, including when a drone was used to record a U.S. practice ahead of a November 2019 match in Florida.
The allegations also included a women’s team staffer filming two Japan practices in 2021.
New Zealand’s Cj Bott, top, and Canada’s Jessie Fleming battle for the ball during the women’s Group A soccer match between Canada and New Zealand at Geoffroy-Guichard stadium during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Saint-Etienne, France. AP
The report suggested that, at times, staffers or coaches who were uncomfortable with the practice were shown the door.
“In a couple of scenarios, people have been pushed and have been told, ‘You have to give 110 percent and this is part of the job so if you don’t feel comfortable with doing this, you do not have a place on the team,’” one source told TSN. “It’s not something that’s talked about and it’s not something there are a lot of text messages about because of how sensitive this is. Some of the people who have had to do the filming or review the filming have said to a few staff members how uncomfortable it was for them.”
An investigation has been launched by both Canada Soccer and FIFA, with the Canadians saying that their inquiry would be conducted by an independent party and made public at the conclusion.
Canada did defeat New Zealand, 2-1, in their opening Olympics match on Thursday.
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