With the start of the Paris 2024 Olympics on the horizon, an unusual story has drawn eyes to the Women’s Football tournament.
New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) made an official complaint to the International Olympic Committee after a drone was flown over their closed training session on July 22nd.
The incident was also reported to police as it occurred, leading to the identification of the operator as a member of the wider Canadian Women’s Football team, who was detained.
NZOC, who believe the operation was to record their team during practice, asked Canada for a full review of the incident, whilst team Canada proceeded to issue a formal apology and begin an investigation.
The Canadian Olympic Committee have since released a statement following their review and has chosen to remove two staff members from the Canadian Olympic Team; Joseph Lombardi, an unaccredited analyst and Jasmine Mander, an assistant coach.
Canadian Head Coach Bev Priestman has voluntarily withdrawn from coaching the teams opening match against New Zealand on July 25th.
Further sanctions require the Canada Soccer staff to undergo mandatory ethics training.
The Game itself
New Zealand have suffered an injury blow outside of this situation, with core defender Ali Riley having to exit the tournament due to an ongoing injury she has not recovered from.
Michaela Foster will take her place at her first Olympics whilst non-travelling alternate Grace Neville will join the Football Ferns in camp from July 24th.
They are also without usual starting striker Hannah Wilkinson, who was left off of the Olympic roster in favour of a younger front line.
The Football Ferns come into the tournament with a rather different squad that they took to their home World Cup in 2023, so will be looking for young players to take their moments in the classic black jersey.
Canada are the current Olympic gold medallists, and despite being in a hard group alongside New Zealand, France and Colombia, are expected to put up a fight to retain their title.
They come into the Olympics without legendary striker Christine Sinclair, who retired from international football in December 2023, after 23 years and 190 goals in a Canadian jersey.
Pressure weighs heavy on the Canadian team to perform after they failed to make it out of their 2023 World Cup group.
New Zealand and Canada have met three times in recent years; last in October 2021, in two matches with Canada winning both, 1-0 and 5-1.
They also met in the group stage of the 2019 World Cup in France; which was another Canadian victory, 2-0.
Their Olympic match-up kicks off at 5pm (French time) on Thursday 25th July.
Feature Image Courtesy of Canada Soccer on FLICKR . No changes were made to the original image.
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