It has all the ingredients of a good television series. The starting point: a women’s soccer team, very popular in its country, Canada, in search of a second consecutive Olympic crown this summer in Paris. Then, the disturbing element: the police, who arrested, on July 22 in a forest near a stadium in Saint-Étienne (Loire), one of the analysts for the Canucks – the nickname of the Canadian team – after He recovered a drone with which the training of his next opponents, the New Zealanders, had been filmed.
Despite the sanction from FIFA, the international body that governs football, which deducted 6 points from them, the Canadians managed to get out of their group, before failing on penalties, against Germany in the quarterfinals of the tournament. Paris 2024 Olympic Games. History? By no means.
Under pressure from the Canadian government, the country’s soccer federation, Canada Soccer, has ordered an independent investigation by law firm Mathews Dinsdale & Clark LLP. Conclusion of the latter: not only two coaches of the women’s team have “directed, approved and endorsed” recording the preparation “from an opposing team” during the Olympic Games, but they also led “inappropriate observation actions” before the summer meeting, according to information made public by the Canadian federation on November 12.
Immediately, the Canucks coach, the British Bev Priestman, who had led the group to Olympic gold in Tokyo 2021 and was suspended after this matter, is fired, as is her assistant, Jasmine Mander. The federation also announced a series of organizational changes, including a contractual obligation to report any ethical violations.
“An unacceptable culture of the past”
Will this be enough to turn the page? I’m not sure. Because, if the president and general director of Canada Soccer, Kevin Blue, in office since mid-March, assures that this incident with the drone is “a symptom of an unacceptable past culture and a lack of oversight within national teams,” The true extent of these espionage activities remains difficult to measure. Especially since transparency is not entirely necessary: the independent investigation, which would have 400 pages according to CBC NewsIt was not published in its entirety. The public had to be content with a six-page summary.
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