Canada’s women’s national team head coach Bev Priestman has been removed from the country’s Olympic soccer team over a scandal involving the use of drones to spy on opponents’ practice, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced Thursday. The COC said it made the decision after Canada Soccer decided to suspend Priestman for the remainder of the tournament. The episode began earlier this week when Canada’s opening opponent, New Zealand, complained to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit after it said drones were flown over closed practice sessions.
The announcement followed a report from TSN that Canada’s women’s and men’s soccer teams have used drones to record opponents’ closed-door training sessions for several years, including during the women’s gold-medal winning Tokyo Olympic tournament in 2021. “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.”
In the fallout of the initial complaint, two staff members — assistant coach Jasmine Mander and Canada Soccer analyst Joseph Lombardi — were sent home from the Olympics. Canada won its opening game of the Olympics 2-1 over New Zealand on Thursday. Canada played the opener without coach Priestman, who stepped away from the team for the match to show accountability. However, she was adamant at practice Wednesday that she had no knowledge of the drone use.
Priestman had agreed to a contract in late January to coach Canada through the 2027 Women’s World Cup. Priestman was hired in November 2020 to succeed Kenneth Heiner-Møller and had been working on a rolling contract. She led Canada to a gold medal at the 2021 Olympics, but was eliminated in the group stage of last year’s World Cup. She has coached the team to 28 wins, nine losses and 10 draws. Priestman spent five years with the Canadian Soccer Association in a variety of coaching roles before returning in June 2018 to her native England, where she served as coach of the women’s under-18 team and assistant coach with the senior women’s team. Before that she spent 4½ years as head of football development in New Zealand before leaving in June 2013.
This scandal has rocked the Canadian women’s national soccer team and the entire Canadian soccer community. The use of drones to spy on opponents is a serious breach of sportsmanship and fair play. The fallout of this incident has caused not only the removal of head coach Bev Priestman, but also the suspension of other staff members and a shadow cast on the team’s recent achievements, including the gold medal in the 2021 Olympics.
Moving forward, Canada Soccer will need to address the culture and practices within the national teams to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future. The integrity of the sport must be upheld, and steps should be taken to prevent any form of unethical behavior from tarnishing the reputation of Canadian soccer on the international stage.
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