They gave the order to cheat! Scandalous female coaches fired by association
Toronto (Canada) - They gave the order for one of the biggest cheating scandals in women's soccer, now they have been fired: The Canadian association has apparently dismissed the national coaching duo Bev Priestman (38) and Jasmin Mander (29).
The results of the investigation into the incident at the Summer Olympics in Paris were presented in Toronto on Tuesday. According to the report, the two coaches even commissioned the filming of the New Zealanders' training session using a drone.
The two had "ordered, authorized and tolerated" the drone overflight, according to the report by lawyer Sonia Regenbogen.
Initially, the pair had claimed to have been unaware that video analyst Joey Lombardi (43) had flown the drone over the opponents' training ground twice before the team's opening match against New Zealand.
The French police caught him doing this and he was even given an eight-month suspended prison sentence. The two women were suspended by the association and subsequently banned by FIFA for a whole year.
Drone scandal at the Summer Olympics in Paris was apparently just the tip of the iceberg
As TSN now reports, neither Prestman nor Mader will return to their jobs, they have been dismissed. Lombardi is also no longer in office, having resigned some time ago.
This was confirmed to the portal by Kevin Blue, Managing Director of Soccer Canada. The future of Andy Spence (41), who took over as head coach after the suspension of the three coaches, is still unclear.
Rumors had already surfaced during the Olympic Games that the drone scandal was not an isolated incident, but that this method was systematically used in Canadian soccer and that other teams had already been spied on in this way at the Tokyo 2021 Games.
Although this could not be confirmed in the investigation report, the radio station Radio Canada published an article on Monday based on around 20 interviews with former coaches, players and employees of Soccer Canada. It confirms that the espionage was "systematic".
If this is the case, the flyover at the Olympics was just the tip of the iceberg and "bad luck" for the coaches that the attentive French police put an end to the goings-on. The role of the federation in this scandal is still unclear. If the fraud was systematic, it can hardly be assumed that the bosses were unaware of it.