Canada withdrew its women's soccer coach, Bev Priestman, from the remainder of the Paris Olympics on Friday after new evidence of drone spying on a rival team was discovered.

The decision by the North American team, current Olympic champions, comes a day after team assistant Jasmine Mander and analyst Joey Lombardi were sent back to the country for using a drone to film a training session. training in New Zealand, one of their rivals in New Zealand. the group stage.

Lombardi was arrested by French police and given an eight-month suspended prison sentence, in a case which will be investigated by FIFA.

The Canadian soccer federation, for its part, called on FIFA this Friday not to sanction the team for the espionage scandal.
Kevin Blue, executive director of the Canadian federation (Canada Soccer), defended his players this Friday, ensuring that they had not seen any images recorded by drones and that they should therefore not be punished for loss of points.

The Canadian team beat New Zealand on Thursday (2-1) in its Olympic soccer debut, which began a few days before the opening ceremony this Friday.

Priestman did not sit on the bench in this match.

Without specifying how long these films have been happening, the Canada Soccer executive said internal sources suggest “this type of behavior could be systemic.”

“But the players were not involved in any unethical behavior,” Blue stressed. “And frankly, we ask FIFA to take this into account if they consider further sanctions.”

“More specifically, we do not believe that a points deduction in this tournament is fair to our players,” she stressed.