No mercy from FIFAThe world soccer body, chaired by Gianni Infantino, has decided to drastically penalize the Canadian women’s team in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games for the spy drone scandal. Two assistant coaches, in fact, were caught using drones to secretly observe the training of the opposing New Zealand team before the opening match last Wednesday.
Iron fist. An unacceptable gesture for FIFA, which has thus decided to assign a 6-point penalty to the national team, exonerating three coaches for a year. Priestman and assistants Joseph Lombardi and Jasmine Mander are now banned from all football for 12 months. The surprising series of punishments also includes a fine of 226 thousand dollars for the Canadian Football Federation. A case that updates the “criminal record” of Canada given that already at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, coach Bev Priestman was suspended by the Football Federation and then removed on suspicion of systematic espionage for years.
Coach Priestman and his subordinates “were found responsible for offensive conduct and breach of the principles of fair play,” according to FIFA. The case is now likely to be referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the special tribunal for the Paris Olympics. The points deduction, if upheld by the CAS judges, will not eliminate Canada from the tournament. It could mean the team will have to win all three of its Group A games and hope to advance with three points to the quarter-finals starting next Saturday, even as the third-ranked team. The fact is that a deduction of that many points for a team is almost Without precedents. And in the midst of an international tournament.