Women’s soccer team must withdraw from Olympics, give back Tokyo gold

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Citius. Altius. Fortius.

Swifter, Higher, Stronger. The Olympic motto.

Citius. How swiftly the integrity of the Canadian women’s soccer team has been compromised.

Altius. How high they flew their spy drones over opponents’ practices.

Fortius. How strong were their false denials.

If Canada’s national soccer program was honourable — which is a hard argument to make this week — it would begin the Paris Olympics with a never-before-achieved result: A negative medal count. Canada should voluntarily give back the gold medal that the women’s team won at Tokyo 2020 (2021 in fact, due to the pandemic).

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Much of the beautiful game, as its devotees are wont to call it, proceeds on the excitement of the one-nil thriller. The minus one-nil thriller would be a novel Canadian contribution to international competition.

For those whose Olympic tastes tend toward breakdancing instead of soccer, the Canadian women’s national team got caught in Paris using a drone to spy on the New Zealand team’s practices on two occasions leading up to their opening match this week.

The New Zealanders reported it to the police and faster than you can say penalty shot, the gendarmerie caught the Canadians. Team officials scrambled to offer scapegoats, and two staff assistants were given the boot (or cleats). One of them has already been charged, convicted and given a suspended sentenced by the French courts. The monstrous slur of Inspector Clouseau as emblematic of incompetent French police has been definitively set aside.

Bev Priestman, the head coach, said on Wednesday that she had no knowledge of the spying, but voluntarily removed herself from the New Zealand game on Thursday (Canada won, a 2-1 thriller). Apparently, it did not occur to anyone that the obvious, and honourable, course was to forfeit the game.

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Astonishingly, Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) chief executive officer David Shoemaker believed Priestman, even thought it was highly implausible that she was telling the truth. Why would a staff assistant spy on opponents’ practices if not to inform Canada’s strategy? And how could that happen if the head coach was not aware of the ill-gotten intelligence?

Priestman’s story collapsed more quickly than a footballer falling to ground in world-class fakery. On Friday morning, she was suspended. Shoemaker said that “additional information” made him “conclude that she was highly likely to have been aware of the incident.”

He did not say whether the additional information included a basic application of common sense.

Shoemaker then indicated that the other shoe was going to drop. FIFA’s disciplinary committee is now investigating whether Canada cheated in Tokyo too, where Priestman also served as head coach. No prizes for figuring out what FIFA will find.

“There now appears to be information that could tarnish that Olympic performance in Tokyo,” Shoemaker said. “It makes me ill. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that there could be something that calls into question … one of my favourite Olympic moments in history, that women’s team winning that gold medal against all odds in COVID restrictions.”

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Canadians — Ben Johnson runs 9.79! — know how this ends. The whole country felt kicked in the gut when Johnson was caught cheating.

In the face of apparent dishonourable conduct, the only recourse is to act honourably now. Forfeit the remaining games, withdraw from the women’s soccer competition in Paris, give back the Tokyo gold medal and fire everyone who compromised the women’s national team. It will be less painful than for Olympic officials to obfuscate now only to be exposed later.

Fans of the less popular football will recall the 2007 spying scandal in the NFL. Perhaps the most dominant team ever to play was the undefeated New England Patriots that season. They were caught cheating, illegally recording their opponents. The NFL is far more expert and experienced in covering things up, so it moved quickly to destroy the Patriots’ tapes and solved the problem with money. Head coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000, the maximum permitted. To put that in context, Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft auctioned one of his Super Bowl rings for charity; the winning bid was more than $1 million.

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The football gods were rather more harsh. While I utterly reject their existence in principle; in practice they do intervene on occasion. The Patriots were defeated in the Super Bowl that year, denied a perfect season, on a David Tyree catch so improbable that it could never be replicated.

Whether the futbol gods care about Olympic soccer, I do not know. But presumably Canadian soccer fans do, as well as Canadian taxpayers. A reckoning is coming.

Altius is an interesting Latin word. It can mean heights or depths. In flying her drones high, Priestman plunged the integrity of her program into the depths. To climb out from the shame will take years.

The path begins by walking away from Paris — and the ill-gotten gold of Tokyo.

National Post

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