July 31 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has turned down Canada’s appeal against the six-point deduction for their women’s team in the wake of the drone scandal.
The Canadians were docked six points and fined CHF 200,000 by FIFA after a staff member used a drone to spy on a New Zealand training session last week. The Canadians did not appeal the ban on coach Bev Priestman.
The appeal to either cancel or reduce the points deduction was made to the CAS Ad hoc Division at the Paris Olympics, who fast tracked a decision ahead of Canada’s final group tie against Colombia tonight.
Canada won their first two group games at the Olympics against New Zealand and France, and will still qualify for the knock-out rounds if they beat Colombia.
“The application filed by the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canada Soccer (the Applicants) in relation to the six-point deduction imposed on the Canadian women’s soccer team for the football tournament at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 has been dismissed,” said the CAS statement in delivering the ruling.
“The Applicants sought a decision from the CAS Ad hoc Division either cancelling or reducing the points deduction imposed by the FIFA Appeal Committee in its decision of 27 July 2024 after it established that breaches of the FIFA regulations applicable to the Olympic football tournament concerning the prohibition on flying drones over training sites had occurred… “Due to the urgency of the matter, only the operative part of the award was notified; the full award with grounds will be published at a later date.”
Canada argued that penalising the players was a sanction for an offence they had no control over.
“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.
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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