Canada Soccer coaches organized spying with drones, investigation concludes

Canadian women’s soccer head coach Bev Priestman and assistant coach Jasmine Mander “directed, approved and condoned” the illegal filming of New Zealand’s team practices at the 2024 Paris Olympics using a drone, according to a report summarizing an investigation of the incident.

The drone footage was not viewed by women’s national team players, according to the summary of Toronto lawyer Sonia Regenbogen’s findings, which were released Tuesday by Canada Soccer.

Assistant coach Joey Lombardi was caught by French police after flying a drone two times over New Zealand’s closed practices ahead of their Olympic tournament-opening game, which Canada won 2-1. Lombardi did not cooperate with Regenbogen’s investigation, according to the report she provided to Canada Soccer on Nov. 5.

Priestman, Mander, and Lombardi were all sent home during the Olympics and suspended for a year by FIFA. Priestman, in a statement through her lawyer, apologized at the time “from the bottom of my heart,” and said she would cooperate with the federation’s investigation.

All of the coaches’ names were redacted in Regenbogen’s summary for legal reasons, the federation wrote in a statement.

Canada Soccer chief executive Kevin Blue told TSN in an interview on Tuesday that Lombardi has resigned from his coaching position and that Priestman and Mander would not be returning to the organization following their suspensions.

Blue declined to discuss the future of other national team coaching staff, including Andy Spence, who took over coaching the women's national team in Priestman's absence. Blue would only say that he is considering additional HR decisions.

In a separate note accompanying the summary findings, Canada Soccer wrote it has identified potential violations of the federation’s code of conduct and ethics involving John Herdman, the former men’s national team head coach.

Herdman was not interviewed by Regenbogen over the past four months because of “scheduling issues,” the note said.

“It's something that Sonia and John's representatives worked on, and I don't really have visibility into the specific situations as to why,” Blue said. “There was evidence gathered from witness statements and documentary review, as far as I understand, in the absence of a direct interview.”

Herdman, who coached the women’s national team from 2011 to 2018 and the men’s from 2018 to 2023, now coaches at Toronto FC. Priestman worked as a technical assistant and an assistant coach under Herdman from 2013 to 2018.

Herdman told reporters on July 26 he was confident his teams never spied on competitors at the Olympics or World Cup, but did not address the national team’s other games.

Herdman had said he would cooperate with Canada Soccer during its probe.

According to Canada Soccer’s discipline code, the chair of the federation’s ethics committee will need to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed with an investigation of Herdman and if that happens, the organization’s discipline committee will investigate.

It’s unclear what leverage either committee has to compel Herdman to cooperate.

“The judicial bodies who are involved in adjudicating disciplinary and ethical considerations will determine whatever course of action is necessary, based on the circumstances of each case, including this one,” Blue said.

Canada Soccer said in a statement accompanying the release of the report that spying orchestrated by women’s national team coaches predated the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Some assistant coaches and staff members felt uncomfortable with the practice of spying on opponents but did not feel they could challenge the authority of the head coach,” the statement said.

On Monday, CBC’s French-language Radio Canada published a story about spying within the national team programs which it said was based on interviews with 20 former Canada Soccer coaches, players, and employees. One former women’s national team player who was not identified told Radio Canada that spying was “systemic” within the program.

Even so, Regenbogen wrote in her summary that she was not provided with any evidence to determine whether federation staffers engaged in spying at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

One source with first-hand knowledge of the incident told TSN that a Team Canada coach filmed two of Japan's closed-door training sessions before Canada tied Japan 1-1 in its first game during those Olympics.

Regenbogen also provided clarity about the use of a drone by staff connected to the men’s national team during the Copa America tournament this summer. A drone was used to film a promotional video for the team, and it did not involve filming any other team’s practice, she wrote.

The redacted release of Regenbogen’s findings is the latest development in a scandal that became an international story during the Olympics and has continued to hang over Canada Soccer for the past four months.

Following Lombardi’s arrest, police searched his hotel room and also found footage he also filmed of New Zealand’s July 20 practice. He told police and FIFA that he did not share the footage he filmed with any Team Canada personnel or players because the filming was of poor quality.  Lombardi was charged with flying an unmanned aircraft in a restricted space. He pleaded guilty and was given an eight-month suspended sentence.

Lombardi said at the time that he was solely responsible for the filming and that others within the program were not aware of his actions, a false claim that has now been refuted by Regenbogen’s findings.

After FIFA assessed the Canadian’s women’s team a six-point penalty for Lombardi’s actions, Canada Soccer provided FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport with some of Priestman’s emails in connection with a failed attempt to appeal the penalty.

A document released by FIFA in July quoted an email sent by a Canada Soccer performance analyst to Priestman on March 20 in which the analyst recapped their meetings with Priestman over the previous week.

“As discussed yesterday, in terms of the ‘spying’ conversation, I came off the meeting with the clarity you understood my reasons for me being unwilling to do this moving forward,” the analyst wrote.

“Morally, my own reputation within the analysis field, potentially being unable to fulfil my role on a matchday. Moving forward I will have a discussion with Joey [Lombardi] and reach out to the wider tech team with regards to how we could potentially look for other solutions. But just wanted to confirm that you will not be asking me to fulfil the role of ‘spying’ in the upcoming and future camps.”

Priestman sent an email to external human resources consultant Mark Thompson, who worked with Canada Soccer, on the same day.

“Seeking your advice and input here regarding this formal email on spying,” Priestman wrote. “It’s something the analyst has always done and I know there is a whole operation on the men’s side with regards to it.”

Priestman wrote that a different Canada Soccer employee had worked recently with her staff, “and he was outstanding in this area.”

“Yesterday in a meeting when discussing, I asked [the analyst] to propose a alternative [sic] solution as for scouting it can be the difference between winning and losing and all top 10 teams do it,” Priestman wrote to the human resources consultant.

Blue wouldn’t say whether others within Canada Soccer, including board members, were copied or aware of the email thread between Priestman and Thompson. Potential discipline involving federation employees will not be made public, Blue said.

“It is evident to me from reading [Regenbogen’s] report that there were certain administrative mistakes made,” Blue said. “Everybody who is involved in this situation will be held accountable. The actions that we are going to be taking as far as accountability in HR will be private. They will certainly reinforce our ethical expectations, they’ll be fair, they’ll consider the facts of individual situations, other factors like power dynamics, and certainly try to consider whether a matter is an integrity shortcoming and or a job performance mistake.”

As TSN has reported previously, Canada’s senior national teams have allegedly been spying on other teams’ closed practices since at least 2016.

In 2021, before Canada’s men’s national team played Honduras in a World Cup qualifier in Toronto, the Honduran team stopped a practice early because someone saw a drone overhead. The allegation that Canada was responsible was never proven.

A year later, Panama’s football federation accused Canada Soccer of sending an employee to spy on a closed practice. Concacaf spokesman Nick Noble confirmed Panama made a complaint but said that the case was dropped because there was no evidence.

A source also told TSN that Canada Soccer employees used a drone to spy on Costa Rica’s closed training before their men’s U-17 World Cup qualifier at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., on May 12, 2019. Canada beat Costa Rica to advance to the World Cup in Brazil, where Canada did not advance to the knockout stage.