Canada spying scandal threatens to tarnish their Tokyo football gold

The reputation of one of the most respected coaches in the women’s game lay in tatters on Friday after the spying scandal engulfing the Canada team led to Bev Priestman being sent home from the Paris Olympics in disgrace.

Three years ago Priestman, who is from County Durham in England, oversaw one of Canada’s proudest modern-day sporting achievements, as her side upset the odds to win a historic first gold in women’s football. Back-to-back nominations for the Best Fifa coach of the year award followed for Priestman, who had been Phil Neville’s assistant with England at the 2019 World Cup. Such was her standing in the game that, when Neville announced in April 2020 that he would leave the England head coach role, Priestman was initially installed as the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed him.

Any such acclaim and praise suddenly feels as if it was an eternity ago, after Priestman was suspended, and the sporting world is building up a list of questions for the 38-year-old to answer. Not least among those are: how much did she know about the use of drones to spy on opponents and for how long has it been going on?

The second of those questions is a key focus of attention, after the Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive, David Shoemaker, said on Friday new information from Soccer Canada showed Priestman was likely aware of the drone use that had prompted this scandal in France and that reports of previous drone use by Canada, including at the previous Olympics in Tokyo, made him feel ill.

“There appears to be information that could tarnish that Olympic performance in Tokyo,” he said at a press conference. “It makes me ill, it makes me sick to my stomach, to think that there could be something that calls into question … one of my favourite Olympic moments in history. I know Canada Soccer will investigate all of this fully, including Tokyo. [We’ll] make sure they get to the bottom of it.”

The Canadian sports network TSN reported that drone use by the Canada camp was not a one-off, with two sources telling TSN other opponents’ closed-door training sessions had been filmed, including during the Olympics in 2021. Canada Soccer’s chief executive and general secretary, Kevin Blue, issuing a statement to explain Priestman’s suspension yesterday, said: “Over the past 24 hours additional information has to come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Games.”

Damningly, Shoemaker said on Friday: “I’ve seen some of the information they have and we gathered some additional information ourselves that made me conclude that she [Priestman] was highly likely to have been aware of the incidents here.”

In Tokyo, Canada beat Sweden in a penalty shootout in the gold-medal match, the culmination of a campaign during which Priestman was repeatedly praised for producing a tactical masterclass, especially when they defeated the favourites the United States in the semi-finals. Fears will be rising that those achievements could become tarnished for ever.

Investigations are ongoing with urgency but, whatever their findings, this hugely embarrassing episode for Canada Soccer is the latest in a long line of worrying situations that have suggested wider dysfunction within the sport. In 2019 the nation was rocked by allegations, uncovered by the Guardian, of abusive behaviour by an elite coach in 2008.

In February 2023 Canada’s women’s players went on strike over pay equity issues and budget cuts. They were threatened with legal action by Canada Soccer. In July 2023 a short-term deal ensuring minimum equal pay with the men’s team was reached, but long-term agreement remains outstanding.

Several Canada Soccer officials have been criticised from within Canada’s parliament for allegedly poor governance and, as recently as June 2023, there were concerns mounting that the organisation might need to file for bankruptcy.

On the men’s side, Canada’s three MLS teams, based in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, reportedly chipped in with more than $1.5m (£1.2m) to fund “MLS Canada men’s national team head coach” Jesse Marsch’s appointment this year because Canada Soccer’s financial losses meant it could not afford to pay Marsch’s salary.

However, failures of governance and alleged cheating in a sporting competition are entirely different matters. It is now the integrity of Priestman, and the perception of Canada’s women’s national programme as a whole, that will remain under intense scrutiny. She has a contract until the 2027 World Cup in Brazil but the chances of her heading to South America in her post rest on off-field matters rather than on-pitch performance.

Priestman’s assistant, the former Everton women’s manager Andy Spence, now has the difficult task of trying to guide Canada through the defence of their Olympic title. They edged past New Zealand with an opening 2-1 win on Thursday but scarcely any of the external focus was on the match.

The Olympic Games is no stranger to allegations of cheating but, to women’s football specifically, this scandal is a shock. Explanations will be urgently demanded from Priestman as the career of one of the game’s brightest young managers stands at a crossroads, and the outside perception of everything her side have achieved in the past four years hangs very much in the balance.