Canada’s women’s soccer team entered the Olympics as the reigning gold medalist and No. 8 team in the world.
So it’s rather perplexing, then, that its Paris Games began with an accusation of spying on New Zealand, a team ranked 28th that has won only two Olympic games in its history.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) issued a complaint Monday about a drone being flown over its women’s soccer team’s practice. Police tracked the drone back to a staffer with the Canadian women’s soccer team, and the fallout of the incident has been fast.
On Friday morning in Paris, Canada removed women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman, saying “additional information” came to light regarding previous drone use against opponents before the Paris Games.
Priestman was suspended for the remainder of the Olympics and until an independent external review is complete, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) said.
On Wednesday, FIFA confirmed its disciplinary committee had opened investigation proceedings, as incidents represent a potential breach of FIFA and Olympic football’s fair play regulations. The IOC previously said it “welcomes the actions” the COC took earlier in the week following the initial drone complaint, which included the Canada Soccer staff undergoing “mandatory ethics training.”
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Canada Soccer CEO reveals drone usage at Copa
The COC had previously removed two Canada Soccer staffers and shared the findings of a second drone incident. Priestman did not coach against New Zealand in a 2-1 win Thursday after the initial incidents were reported.
Canada Soccer said Friday morning in Paris that assistant coach Andy Spence would lead the women’s team for the rest of the Olympic Games.
But with the Olympic tournament underway, questions remain about Canada’s actions.
Here’s what we know so far.
How did this start?
New Zealand team staff members noticed a drone flying above their practice in Saint-Étienne, France, on Monday and notified police. Law enforcement tracked the drone back to its operator, Joseph Lombardi, an “unaccredited analyst” with the Canadian women’s team, the COC said.
The “unaccredited analyst” distinction is only important from an Olympics perspective, with the number of accreditations limited for national teams to use. Lombardi is listed on Canada Soccer’s staff as the National Development Centre Ontario and Women’s U-20 Director.
The Canadian Olympic Committee said Wednesday that a separate drone incident at New Zealand training — on July 19 — had come to light. The COC confirmed Lombardi used a drone “to record the New Zealand women’s football team during practice.”
The COC apologized to New Zealand’s players, federation and the International Olympic Committee, saying it was “shocked and disappointed.”
Canada removed Priestman from the team for the rest of the Olympics on Friday morning after learning of drone use against opponents that predates the Summer Games.
“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 and general secretary Kevin Blue said in a statement. “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.”
Does this go beyond the Olympics?
On Friday, Blue addressed reporters to provide an update on further actions taken by the federation. While an update on Priestman’s status was expected, instead Blue revealed that based on his preliminary conversations and investigation so far, he was not facing an isolated incident but a much larger pattern that extends across both the women’s and men’s national teams.
“The more I learn about this specific matter, the more concerned I get about a potential long-term, deeply embedded systemic culture of this type of thing occurring, which is obviously completely unacceptable,” he said.
Notably, Blue said that men’s national team coach Jesse Marsch was made aware of an attempted use of a drone at Copa America after the fact, and that Marsch denounced its use to his coaching staff.
“My current understanding is that the fact pattern of that instance is significantly different than what occurred here, especially as it relates to the potential impact on competitive integrity,” Blue said.
Canada Soccer will undergo its own investigation into the use of drones and surveillance across the entire program, though Blue did not have a timeline for the investigation — or for any potential outcome for WNT head coach Bev Priestman. Ahead of the call, Canada removed Priestman from the team for the rest of the Olympics.
“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” Blue said in a statement. “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.”
How does this affect the players at the Olympics?
Blue said multiple times on the call that he felt the players on Canada’s WNT should not be punished as they had no role in the use of a drone by Canada’s technical staff.
“Specifically, we do not feel that a deduction of points in this tournament would be fair to our players. particularly in light of the significant and immediate steps we’ve taken to address the situation,” Blue said. So far, there has been no indication from FIFA or the IOC that Canada’s three points from the win over New Zealand in their first group-stage match are in question.
While the players currently on the ground in France have expressed their own frustrations with the situation, Canada’s Olympic win in Tokyo has now also been called into question.
Stephanie Labbé, Canada’s starting goalkeeper during the team’s 2020 Olympic gold medal run, defended herself and her play Friday, saying her success came from studying game tape and making “educated guesses”.
if anyone wants to speak about pks. i studied HARD the night before every match. Watched video of players taking pks in national team and club games. Made my own educated guesses based on that info. NO DRONE FOOTAGE was watched. Do not confuse great goalkeeping with cheating.
— Stephanie Labbé (@stephlabbe1) July 26, 2024
Ultimately, while players were likely entirely unaware of this systemic use of surveillance, they unwittingly benefited from it — and it’s the same reason why FIFA is investigating Canada on fair play grounds. It was unfair to Canada’s players if they received an advantage from the program, and it was unfair to their opponents at the same time. The players are not at fault, but they have been drawn into this either way.
Who was punished and how?
In addition to Priestman, Lombardi and Jasmine Mander, an assistant coach who oversees Lombardi, were sent home from the Olympics.
Without naming him, a Saint-Étienne prosecutor said a 43-year-old Canadian man received an eight-month suspended sentence in French court for filming the two training sessions, according to the Associated Press.
On Wednesday, COC CEO David Shoemaker said that they had offered legal support and consular services to both Lombardi and Mander, as well as offering mental health support to the entirety of Canada’s Olympic delegation.
Priestman had said Tuesday she would remove herself from managing the team during Thursday’s game against New Zealand, while Shoemaker clarified Wednesday that she would remain in her role as coach for the rest of the tournament.
“We thought about all repercussions for Bev,” Shoemaker said ahead of Friday’s decision. “At the end of the day, the drone footage related to the filming of two New Zealand practices remained in the hands of the pilot of the drone.”
“I am ultimately responsible for conduct in our program,” Priestman said before her removal. “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.”
Who is Bev Priestman?
The 37-year-old has been with Canada Soccer as the women’s national team head coach since October 2020, departing her previous role as an assistant coach with England. She guided Canada to their gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. The team underperformed at the 2023 World Cup, exiting in the group stage.
Earlier this year, she signed a contract extension with Canada Soccer to keep her in the role through the 2027 World Cup.
Who are Jesse Marsch and John Herdman?
Marsch has been the coach of Canada’s men’s team since May, becoming the first American to coach Canada. He oversaw the team during the 2024 Copa América, during which Canada advanced out of Group A and reached the semifinals, where they fell to eventual champion Argentina. Marsch has been linked to the open coach job for the U.S., but said he had no interest.
John Herdman was both Priestman’s and Marsch’s predecessor, as Herdman coached Canada’s women’s team from 2011 to 2018 and then coached the men’s team from 2018 to 2023. The women’s team was coached from 2018 to 2020 by Kenneth Heiner-Møller, another assistant to Herdman, before Priestman was hired.
Herdman also served as men’s national director starting in 2021 and led the men’s team to its first World Cup in 36 years in 2022.
Herdman’s connection with Priestman goes back decades, as Herdman was her youth futsal coach when Priestman was 12. Herdman also oversaw Priestman when she coached Canada’s U17 and U20 women’s teams from 2013 to 2018.
Prior to coaching Canada, Herdman was coach of New Zealand’s women’s national team from 2006 to 2011, guiding the team to Women’s World Cups in 2007 and 2011, as well as the 2008 Olympics.
Both Marsch and Herdman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
What does this mean for Priestman?
This is the biggest remaining question — and now she must await the results of both Canada’s internal investigation as well as FIFA’s disciplinary committee.
Her reputation, however, is very much at risk. She has apologized publicly multiple times already, saying that she is the one ultimately accountable as the leader of the program and responsible for the actions of her staff.
Either way, however, it’s troublesome for Priestman: either she knew that there was surveillance happening for opposing teams, stretching back to the previous Olympics, or her staff was doing it without her knowledge — indicating she did not have control over her technical staff. It’s hard to imagine this does not result in her dismissal, but if Canada Soccer sets that precedent with Priestman, they must also apply it to the men’s national team. There is risk of a double standard, but if they can definitively prove that Marsch was too new in his role as MNT head coach to be aware of the attempted drone use at Copa America the federation can defend a potential future choice on Marsch’s future.
Canada coach Bev Priestman looks on prior the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games women’s final football match between Sweden and Canada in August 2021. (Photo: Loic Venance / AFP)
What’s the French law about drones?
Due to strict European regulations that have been in place since 2021, drone hobbyists are barred from flying the aircrafts over people and can not share images or recordings without the other party’s consent.
Drones have been a story across the Paris Games, with French prime minister Gabriel Attal saying Tuesday that an average of six drones per day have been intercepted at Olympic sites, mostly from tourists trying to capture footage of the spectacle.
Teams were given guidance that use of drones in any capacity, including to record their own training sessions for internal video reviews, was forbidden according to a source with knowledge of Olympic football protocols that was not authorized to speak on record.
What have officials said?
Canadian Olympic Committee
Shoemaker, the COC CEO, said that after reviewing the incident, they were satisfied with the proactive measures they had taken so far.
“I, with the facts available to me, made judgments that I think properly addresses the situation,” Shoemaker said. “An important factor here is that we did most of this with the full and complete cooperation of Canada Soccer, who I believe also is committed to fully determining root causes as it relates to these kinds of techniques and other pressures that coaches might feel they’re under. In order to give their team the best chance of winning.”
Shoemaker stressed that he believed Priestman’s account that she was unaware of her staff’s actions. He did say that if any new information were to be presented that suggested otherwise, the COC would “reserve the right to impose further sanctions.”
FIFA
FIFA said Wednesday it would investigate all potentially involved parties in the drone surveillance, including Priestman and Canada Soccer. It did not issue a precise timeline for when this might be resolved, with Priestman due to be back on the sideline for Canada’s second group-stage match against France on Sunday in Saint-Étienne.
According to Shoemaker, New Zealand also asked FIFA to not award Canada any points if it was to win Thursday’s match, but he did not provide any further details or if FIFA was considering such a sanction.
Canada Soccer
On Wednesday, Canada Soccer issued a statement, with president Peter Augruso and Blue expressing their “unequivocal disapproval” over the actions of the women’s national team’s staff.
They also pledged the federation would proceed with its own independent, external review, separate from the one launched by FIFA’s disciplinary committee.
“This review will address the circumstances of the current matter, and more broadly, will seek to understand the historical culture of competitive ethics within all of our programs,” they said. “The outcome of this review will be shared publicly and corrective actions, if necessary, will be taken.”
New Zealand Football
In a statement Thursday morning in New Zealand, New Zealand Football CEO Andrew Pragnell called for “urgent action” to be taken to “address this integrity breach.”
“To hear now that the Canadian team had filmed secret footage of our team training at least twice is incredibly concerning and if not treated urgently could have wider implications for the integrity of the tournament,” Pragnell’s statement said.
“We note that there have been some admissions by the Canadian National Olympic Committee, and they have taken their own sanctions against the Canadian team, however, considering the seriousness of the situation, and the potential implications to the sporting integrity of the entire tournament, we have referred the matter to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee seeking urgent action,” the statement continued.
What are some other notable sports cheating incidents?
- New England Patriots: The Patriots were accused by the New York Jets in 2007 of videotaping the Jets’ defensive signals using team cameras in unauthorized locations in a scandal dubbed “Spygate.” The NFL docked New England a first-round pick and fined coach Bill Belichick $500,000.
- Houston Astros: The Astros were involved in a sign-stealing scandal that resulted in team members being disciplined for illegally using cameras to steal signs from opposing teams in 2017 and 2018. According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich’s reporting, the team used a camera in center field to pick up the pitcher’s signal from the catcher, and relayed that to batters with various cues, including banging on a trash can.
- Michigan football: A Michigan sign-stealing scandal dominated college football headlines in 2023. Michigan was accused of physically sending people to games of its opponents with the intent of collecting strategic information that the Michigan football program would otherwise not have access to, such as signals and play calls that are not shown on the TV broadcast or in other game film.
- 2014 World Cup: As France prepared to face Brazil at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, France men’s manager Didier Deschamps reported a sighting of a drone above their practice. It was never discovered who it belonged to.
(Top photo of Bev Priestman: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
