Wednesday evening, TSN’s senior correspondent, Rick Westhead, published an eye-opening article detailing past drone spying by the staff of the Canadian Women’s National Team that dates back to at least the (2021) Tokyo Summer Olympics, where Canada won gold.
The allegations in the article indicate that the drone spying against New Zealand could be a “tip of the iceberg” situation, and greatly increases the probability that Canada Soccer, Canada’s WNT, and some of the WNT’s coaching and support staff could be facing significant sanctions in the days and months to come.
Other news from Wednesday include the suspension of head coach Bev Priestman as well as an official statement from FIFA that its Disciplinary Committee has opened official investigations.
Previously: DroneGate! Canada Caught Spying on New Zealand Practices
The FIFA Disciplinary Committee Is Now Investigating
Canada Soccer, along with three persons are under official investigation: Head coach Bev Priestman, performance analyst Joseph Lombardi (the operator of the drone), and assistant coach Jasmine Mander (Lombardi’s direct report).
Wednesday morning, FIFA released the official statement from its Disciplinary Committee:
The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has opened proceedings against Canada Soccer, Ms Beverly Priestman, Mr Joseph Lombardi and Ms Jasmine Mander due to the potential breach of article 13 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code and article 6.1 of the Regulations Olympic Football Tournaments Games of the XXXIII Olympiad Paris 2024 – Final Competition, following incidents involving a non-accredited member of the Canadian delegation at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, who is believed to have used a drone to record the New Zealand women’s football team.
The matter will be submitted for the consideration of the Disciplinary Committee in the next days.
Article 13 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (PDF) is titled “Offensive behaviour and violations of the principles of fair play” and consists of two sub-sections:
- Association and clubs, as well as their players, officials and any other member and/or person carrying out a function on their behalf, must respect the Laws of the Game, as well as the FIFA Statutes and FIFA’s regulations, directives, guidelines, circulars and decisions, and comply with the principles of fair play, loyalty and integrity.
- For example, anyone who acts in any of the following ways may be subject to disciplinary measures:
a) violating the basic rules of decent conduct;
b) insulting a natural or legal person in any way, especially by using offensive gestures, signs or language;
c) using a sports event for demonstrations of a non-sporting nature;
d) behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or FIFA into disrepute;
e) actively altering the age of players shown on the identity cards they produce at competitions that are subject to age limits.
Article 6.1 of the Regulations for the Olympics Football Tournament Games of the XXXIII Olympiad Paris 2024 (PDF) simply incorporates the FIFA Disciplinary Code, the FIFA Code of Ethics, and other regulations into the rules for the tournament:
6.1 The member associations that qualify for the Tournaments (the “Participating Member Associations”) agree, in collaboration with the respective NOC, to comply with and ensure that every player, coach, manager, official, media officer, representative, guest and any other person carrying out duties throughout the final competition, and for the entire stay in the host countries, on behalf of a Participating Member Association (hereinafter “Delegation Member”) complies with these Regulations, the Laws of the Game, the FIFA Statutes and FIFA’s other regulations, in particular the FIFA Disciplinary Code, the FIFA Anti-Doping Regulations, the FIFA Code of Ethics and the FIFA Equipment Regulations, as well as with any other FIFA circular letters, regulations, guidelines, directives and/or decisions.
(Did you notice the circular reference between these two sections?)
The COC’s Most Recent Statement
Late Wednesday night (very early Thursday morning in France), The Canadian Olympic Committee released a quote by Canada Soccer CEO Kevin Blue which stated that Bev Priestman had been suspended by Canada Soccer and that “additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents”. This drone use “predat[es] the Paris 2024 Olympics Games”. The full statement:
PARIS (July 26, 2024) – 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.
Canada Soccer CEO & General Secretary Kevin Blue has made the following statement:
“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 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.”
Rick Westhead’s Reporting on Prior Drone Spying
The source of the “additional information” about previous drone use is most likely to be an article written by TSN senior correspondent Rick Westhead, which was published less than an hour before the COC’s statement: Canada’s men’s and women’s soccer teams have relied on drones and spying for years, sources say.
The article which is based on interviews from at least two anonymous sources as well as text messages from 2022 that specifically discuss “secret filming of… training sessions” against the women’s national teams of Costa Rica, South Korea, and Trinidad & Tobago.
In addition to the spying at this year’s Olympics, there is now evidence of drone spying against at least five other women’s national teams, including against Japan at the last Summer Olympics (Tokyo, 2021), where Canada won its first Olympic gold medal in women’s soccer.
Summary Timeline:
- July 2024: New Zealand WNT (Olympics)
- July 2022: Panama WNT (WWC qualifier) – Panama’s federation complained to both Canada Soccer and Concacaf
- 2022: Costa Rica WNT, South Korea WNT, and Trinidad & Tobago WNT
- July 2021: Japan WNT (Olympics)
Additionally, the article presents evidence that the drone spying was not a secret within the teams staff, with multiple persons having knowledge of the drone usage, either through reviewing the drone videos and/or discussing the drone spying with other staff members.
As of now, there are no allegations that any of Canada’s players had knowledge regarding the drone spying.
Notable: The TSN article also includes allegations that the Canadian Men’s National Team use a drone to spy against the United States Men’s National Team in November 2019 before a Concacaf Nation’s League match that was held in Florida.
The Road Ahead…
If the above allegations are shown to be true, Canada’s WNT could face a temporary ban from future competitions. The ban could even be extended to its youth national teams.
Compare:
- 2011 North Korea WNT doping scandal: Due to five players failing doping tests during the 2011 WWC, North Korea was banned from the 2015 WWC (Wikipedia)
- Mexico’s two-year ban due to the Cachirules scandal (Wikipedia): While that scandal only involved intentionally fielding underage players at a (men’s) Concacaf U-20 Championship, FIFA suspended all of Mexico’s teams from international competitions. Most significantly, this included the 1990 men’s World Cup, which opened the door for the USMNT to qualify for their first World Cup since 1950.
It is also possible that previous results, most significantly the 2021 Summer Olympics, could be annulled, which would mean stripping Canada of their gold medals. Procedure-wise and proof-wise, the investigations are still in their infancy, but given the potential extent of the drone-spying allegations, this is now a distinct possibility.
There is still a possibility that FIFA could act during the Olympics tournament, with July 31st being the de facto deadline, as that is the last day of the group stage.
Sanctions by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee against Joseph Lombardi and Jasmine Mander are all but guaranteed.
Additionally, it is looking more and more likely that Bev Priestman’s suspension by Canada Soccer will become a sacking. The most probable explanation for Canada Soccer not firing Priestman outright at this time is that they are likely building a case to terminate her for-cause, which should nullify any guaranteed compensation clauses in her contract, which does not expire until after the 2027 WWC. (Reuters article)
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