Three Canada Soccer officials, including head coach Bev Priestman, were sent home from the Games in July, after French police tracked a drone hovering over the practice of the New Zealand women’s team. Priestman gestures during a soccer training session ahead of the FIFA Women's World Cup in Melbourne, Australia, July 17, 2023.Scott Barbour/The Associated Press
Canada Soccer says it expects to share the findings of an independent review into the drone-spying scandal that overshadowed last summer’s Paris Olympics within the next week.
The organization’s CEO and general secretary, Kevin Blue, said in a news release on Friday that the investigation found the drone spying was “a symptom of a past pattern of an unacceptable culture and insufficient oversight within the national teams.”
The statement said the organization would release conclusions from the investigation and what it planned to do in response. He said that response would be “thoughtful” and that Canada Soccer would move quickly.
Three Canada Soccer officials were sent home from the Games in July, after French police tracked a drone hovering over the practice of the New Zealand women’s team. Operating the machine was a Canada Soccer analyst named Joey Lombardi, who was arrested, and later sent back to Canada with assistant coach Jasmine Mander, and later, head coach Bev Priestman.
The Globe and Mail reported on Friday that a year before the Paris Olympics, Jason deVos, who at the time was the interim general secretary of Canada Soccer, received a complaint from a staff member about colleagues allegedly being directed to spy on competitors.
In one instance, the materials show, Mr. deVos was told by the staffer that this instruction came from Ms. Mander, who at the time was a coach and analyst with the women’s program.
The materials reviewed by The Globe show that the staffer told Mr. deVos that the analysts felt as though they couldn’t say no.
Mr. deVos, who left Canada Soccer in January to become an assistant coach of Toronto FC, a professional soccer club, did not respond to e-mailed requests for comment.
In July, Canada Soccer announced that it was launching an internal review into the matter headed by Toronto employment lawyer Sonia Regenbogen. The investigation is examining the program’s “historical culture of competitive ethics.”
In response to questions from The Globe about the 2023 complaint to Mr. deVos, a lawyer for Ms. Mander said: “The allegations made by others to you about Ms. Mander’s involvement in various attempts to obtain surveillance of opponents are not accurate.” The lawyer, Dean Crawford, said Ms. Mander is still employed by Canada Soccer and has been told by the organization not to discuss anything related to the scandal.
Four other current and former staffers with Canada Soccer detailed in interviews with The Globe what they allege had become an accepted practice at the taxpayer-funded organization: The program dispatched staff to gather surveillance on competitors at closed-door practices and scrimmages for the purposes of gathering intelligence on their game plans. The Globe is not identifying the sources because they feared professional repercussions for speaking out about the alleged practice.
Two of the sources showed The Globe text messages from colleagues asking them to locate the practice sites of Canada’s competitors while teams were staying in foreign locales; another source alleged they were asked by Ms. Mander but they refused; three sources said the need to gather such intelligence was aired in a meeting they attended.
A spokesperson for Canada Soccer declined to comment on these allegations. “Canada Soccer will provide updates on this work, as they are available,” said the spokesperson, Paulo Senra.