The Canadian women’s soccer team wasn’t the only one spying on opponents with drones. The Canadian men’s national soccer team, led by head coach Jesse Marsh, also flew drones at the recent Copa America 2024 (South American soccer championship).
According to the CBC and the BBC on the 27th (KST), David Shoemaker, the CEO of the Canadian Soccer Association, admitted that “Coach Marsh realized after the Copa America that (the national team coaching staff) had used drones and reprimanded the coaching staff afterward.”
This is an admission that Canada’s men’s and women’s national teams have a history of “drone spying” on opponents.
Shoemaker declined to elaborate on the use of drones at the Copa America, but insisted that it did not affect performance.
Canada, led by Marsh, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the South Korean national soccer team job, made its first appearance at the Copa America, which concluded this month, and finished fourth, the highest ranking of any North American country.
Earlier, a support staff member for Canada’s women’s national soccer team was arrested by police after they were called to the training ground of first-round opponent New Zealand for flying a drone over the team’s training ground ahead of a group game at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Canada suspended head coach Beverly Priestman and removed the head coach and power analyst from the team, saying “our own investigation further confirmed that the team had been using drones to gather opponent intelligence since before the Paris Games.”

“The athletes were not involved,” Shoemaker said, and asked that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) take this into account in their investigations and disciplinary processes.
FIFA is also looking into how Canada’s women’s team won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Canada won 3-2 in a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw with Sweden in 120 minutes of extra time to win their first Olympic title.
Priestman was in charge at the time.
“It seems that information is emerging that could tarnish the achievements of the Tokyo Olympics,” Shoemaker said, referring to the possibility of the gold medal being stripped, ”and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that the moment the women overcame COVID-19 adversity to win the gold medal has been cast into doubt.”
Canadian women’s soccer legend Christine Sinclair, who played for the national team for 23 years from 2000 to last year, defended herself, saying she never had a video meeting with a drone.
John Hudman, who coached the Canadian women’s national team from 2011 to 2018, swears he never used a drone during his tenure.
Canada’s women, coached by acting head coach Andy Spence, will play their second Group A match against host France at 4 a.m. on Monday. 토토사이트 순위