PARIS, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Canada's Olympic women's football team has been deducted six points and their coach Beverly Priestman banned for a year after revelations that a drone was used to spy on one of their rival's training sessions.
The news comes after two of Priestman's assistants, Joseph Lombardi and Jasmine Mander, were sent home on Wednesday after it was confirmed they had used a drone to gather information from a session held by the New Zealand women's team.
Lombardi and Mander have also been suspended by a year by football's global governing body FIFA.
"The officials were each found responsible for offensive behavior and violation of the principles of fair play in connection with the Canadian Soccer Association's Women's representative team's drones usage in the scope of the Olympic football tournament," explained a FIFA communique.
Canada beat New Zealand 2-1 in their group game on Thursday, although Priestman, who had led Canada to gold at Tokyo 2020, was not in the dugout after she had "voluntarily" withdrawn from her coaching duties.
Speaking on Friday, Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive David Shoemaker said Priestman had probably known about the drone use, and didn't rule out it tarnishing Canada's previous success.
"There appears to be information that could tarnish that Olympic performance in Tokyo," he said at a press conference.
"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 favorite Olympic moments in history," he added.
