Canadian soccer chiefs on Friday pleaded for FIFA not to deduct points from their women’s Olympic football team amid a drone-spying scandal which led to head coach Bev Priestman being dramatically kicked out of the Paris Games in disgrace.
Canada Soccer chief executive Kevin Blue said in a conference call with reporters that Canadian players had not seen any footage produced by drones used to spy on a New Zealand training session before the games and therefore should not be punished by FIFA.
Reigning Olympic champions Canada defeated New Zealand 2-1 in their opening game of the women’s football tournament on Thursday despite the turmoil raging around the squad.
Canada Soccer announced early Friday that English coach Priestman had been suspended with immediate effect after initial investigations into the scandal revealed drone-spying which pre-dated the Paris Olympics.
Priestman’s departure came a day after assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joey Lombardi were also sent home for their roles in the scandal.
Blue told reporters on Friday that there had been “frankly unacceptable shortcomings of ethical incidents” by members of the Canadian coaching team.
However he pleaded with FIFA not to slap Canada with a points deduction which could potentially blow a hole in the defence of their Olympic crown.
“The players themselves have not been involved in any unethical behaviour,” Blue said. “And frankly we ask FIFA to take that into consideration if contemplating any further sanctions.
“Specifically we do not feel that a deduction of points in this tournament would be fair to our players.”
Blue said preliminary investigations had unearthed indications of what appeared to be “systemic ethical shortcomings” but was unable to clarify how long Canada’s coaching staff had been using drones to spy on rival training sessions.
“I received new internal information from internal sources that gave me reason to think further about the potential that this type of behavior was systemic,” Blue said.
“Concrete information I received yesterday made me consider the possibility that this matter is much more extensive.”
Asked if the the tactic had been used at last year’s Women’s World Cup, where Canada failed to progress from the group stage, Blue said he was unable to say at this stage.
“This is all happening in real time,” he said.
But he was adamant that none of Canada’s players had access to the footage obtained in Paris.
“I am stating right now that the team has not seen any of that footage,” he said.
Canada’s players had insisted they were innocent of wrongdoing after their opening victory over the New Zealanders on Thursday.
“There was a lot of emotion, frustration and humiliation because as a player, it doesn’t reflect our values and what we want to represent as competitors at the Olympics,” defender Vanessa Gilles said.
“The Games represent fair play. As Canadians, these are not our values or those of our country. We are not cheats. It was very hard but we knew how to be united.”
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