Canada send coaches home from Olympics after spying on football rivals with drone at Paris 2024

New Zealand have accused Canada of flying a drone over a training session before the two nations meet in Saint-Etienne

Canada won women’s football gold at Tokyo 2020 (Getty Images)

Canada have forced two coaching staff members to leave their women’s Olympics football team camp and head coach Bev Priestman will not be in charge of the side for their opening match at Paris 2024 after an investigation into drone spying.

New Zealand’s Olympic Committee says its women’s football team had their training session disrupted by a drone flown by a staff member of the Canadian team they face in Group A on Thursday.

“On July 22, a drone was flown over the New Zealand women’s football team training session in St Etienne,” the NZOC said on Tuesday.

“Team support members immediately reported the incident to police, leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women’s football team, to be detained.”

The incident was immediately reported to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit and Team Canada has since apologised. Following their own internal investigation, both an unaccredited analyst, Joseph Lombardi, and Priestman’s assistant coach, Jasmine Mander, have been removed from their positions and sent home from the Games.

“The NZOC and New Zealand Football are committed to upholding the integrity and fairness of the Olympic Games and are deeply shocked and disappointed by this incident, which occurred just three days before the sides are due to face each other in their opening game of Paris 2024,” the statement said.

“At this time the NZOC’s main priority is to support the New Zealand women’s football athletes and wider team as they start their campaign.”

The Canadian Olympic Committee said they were informed of the incident involving “a non-accredited member of the Canada Soccer support team,” adding at the time that they were “reviewing next steps with the IOC, Paris 2024, Canada Soccer and Fifa.”

The two nations meet in Saint-Etienne on Thursday (Getty Images)

“The Canadian Olympic Committee stands for fair-play and we are shocked and disappointed. We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee,” they said in a statement.

Priestman later added a statement of her own and confirmed she would step aside for the first game, apologising again to New Zealand. “This does not represent the values our team stands for,” she said. “I am ultimately responsible for our conduct [...], to emphasise our team’s committment to integrity I have decided to voluntarily withdraw from coaching the match on Thursday.”

Additional reporting by Reuters