July 30 – Canada have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the decision to dock their women’s team six points in the ongoing Olympic drone spying scandal. But they have stopped short of appealing head coach Bev Priestman’s one-year ban.
The appeal was launched jointly by the Canadian FA and the Canadian Olympic Committee with a fast-track hearing “likely to take place” today and a verdict expected tomorrow.
The reigning Olympic champions were docked six points and fined CHF 200,000 by FIFA after a staff member used a drone to spy on New Zealand’s training session last week.
Analyst Joey Lombardi was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence and sent home after being caught flying the drone ahead of the game between the sides which Canada won 2-1.
Priestman and assistant coach Jasime Mander were banned by FIFA from all football-related activities for one year, along with Lombardi. The appeal to CAS does not relate to those bans, only to the points deduction.
Canada’s women have won both of their matches so far at the Paris Games, against New Zealand and France, but the penalty means they have zero points with only one Group A game remaining.
As it stands they must beat Colombia on Wednesday if they are to advance to the quarter-finals as they seek to repeat their gold medal triumph at the Tokyo Games three years ago. Two third-place teams in the three groups will go to the knockout stage.
“The appeal is based on the disproportionality of the sanction, which we believe unfairly punishes the athletes for actions they had no part in and goes far beyond restoring fairness to the match against New Zealand,” Canada Soccer said in a statement.
A CAS statement said Canada seek a decision “either cancelling or reducing the points deduction”.
Captain Jessie Fleming said of the points deduction: “I think it is incredibly unfair to penalise the players in this way. The players had absolutely no control over the situation. I think it has brought us closer [together]. It feels like us against the world right now.”
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