Drone Spying Scandal Forces Canada Women's Soccer Coach to Exit Olympics

The head coach of Canada’s women’s soccer team was sent home from the Paris Olympics in the wake of a drone-spying scandal that has suddenly engulfed the gold-medal club at the start of the Games.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) suspended the coach, Bev Priestman, for the remainder of the Games after discovering members of the team’s staff used drones to spy on opponents both during the tournament and before it. 

“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.” 

The scandal began on Monday when New Zealand’s team complained to police about a drone hovering over its practice session in Saint-Étienne, France. Officials tracked the drone to a staff member of the Canadian women’s team, according to media reports. On Wednesday, the COC said it had discovered a previous incident of spying on another New Zealand practice on July 19. Joseph Lombardi, an “unaccredited analyst” for the team and another coach, Jasmine Mander, were sent home on Wednesday after the COC confirmed Lombardi was behind the July 19 spying.

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In the wake of these revelations, Priestman voluntarily sat out her team’s match against New Zealand on Thursday. Canada, which took the gold medal in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, beat New Zealand 2-1. Her suspension from the Olympics came on Friday after the additional drone use was discovered. Assistant coach Andy Spence will lead the team for the remainder of the Games.

On a virtual press appearance following the suspension announcement, Blue said preliminary investigations revealed that the use of drones to spy on opponents appears to be more widespread than originally thought and extends to the Canadian men’s soccer team too. 

Specifically, Blue said, attempts were made to use drones to spy on the men’s opponents during the recently concluded Copa America tournament. Men’s coach Jesse Marsch only learned of those attempts after the fact, Blue noted. He will continue to lead the team through the Games.

“He explained to me that he denounced it immediately and forcefully and has communicated that to his staff, both his existing staff and staff that were from previous coaching staffs that are still with us,” Blue said of Marsch.

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