Defending Champions at the Olympics, the Canada Women’s National team has come under a lot of scrutiny after a totally unethical practice came to light in the leadup to their opening game at the Paris Olympics 2024. Following further revelations on the topic, the Canadian Olympic Committee(COC) has sacked the 2020 Tokyo Olympics-winning manager Bev Priestman.
Earlier the New Zealand Women’s team had complained to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit about a Drone that was flying over their practice ground and was found to be controlled by a Canadian staff member. The New Zealand Olympic Committee said, “Team support members immediately reported the incident to police leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women’s football team, to be detained. The NZOC has formally lodged the incident with the IOC integrity unit and has asked Canada for a full review.”
A common practice for Canada
An investigation into this matter revealed many sources that talked about drone-spying being a recurring occurrence in the Canadian National Men’s and Women’s teams. According to the TSN’s sources, it had been done in their 2021 Olympics-winning campaign as well. There is certain video evidence of it being done before a match against Panama in 2022. There was a similar incident with the Honduras National team as well during the World Cup qualifiers. According to those sources, there was drone spying before the Japan vs Canada game during the last Olympics as well.
Assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joseph Lombardi returned to Canada after Lombardi was apprehended by French police on Monday. The incident occurred when Lombardi was spotted retrieving a drone that had been flying over the New Zealand team’s training session. There’s no saying how long this has been going on for but thankfully with the Canadian staff being caught it will finally stop.
Sacking of the Head Coach
Following the revelations about the drone-spying and Canada Soccer’s decision to suspend Priestman, The Canadian Olympic Committee took the decision of firing Bev Priestman. The statement read, “The Canadian Olympic Committee has removed the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team Head Coach Bev Priestman from the Canadian Olympic Team due to her suspension by Canada Soccer. Assistant coach Andy Spence will lead the Women’s National Soccer Team for the remainder of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”
Bev Priestman too had a few words to say to a CBC interviewer on Wednesday, saying “On behalf of our entire team, I first and foremost want to apologize to the players and staff at New Zealand Football and to the players on Team Canada. This does not represent the values that our team stands for. I am ultimately responsible for conduct in our program. Accordingly, to emphasize our team’s commitment to integrity, I have decided to voluntarily withdraw from coaching the match on Thursday. In the spirit of accountability, I do this with the interests of both teams in mind and to ensure everyone feels that the sportsmanship of this game is upheld.”
Well, fortunately for Football and unfortunately for Priestman, she will be withdrawing from much more than just the Olympic opener against New Zealand which Canada won 2-1 anyways.
