Ben Steiner: Canadian sports journalist with the latest on Canada's drone-spying saga

Canada's women's football side are still progressing well in the Paris Olympics, despite the impact of their team's drone spying saga.

Fifa docked six points from the team, and they were fined 200,000 Swiss francs ($384,000).

Canadian sports journalist Ben Steiner joined Piney to discuss.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancie Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
So big story.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Ready of the last week with regards to the Olympic
Games the significant punishments for the Canadian women's football team
at the Paris Olympics. Just to summarize, FIFA deducted six
points from their group tally at the Games, find them
two hundred thousand Swiss francs, which is around four hundred
thousand New Zealand dollars, and head coach Bev Priestman and

(00:35):
two members of her staff banned from all football activity
for one year now. Despite that six point deduction, which
had them obviously as six point deductions do minus six,
they beat New Zealand that results stood, so they moved
to minus three. This morning, they scored a goal in

(00:55):
the twelfth minute of added time to beat France two
one to move up to zero points and they're still
alive in their quest for the quarter finals. If they
be Columbia in their third game, they could well go
through to the quarterfinals, astonishing. Ben Steiner is a Toronto
based reporter and broadcaster. He works for CBC Sports in

(01:19):
Canada and joins us Now on Sports Talk, Ben, thanks
for taking the time. Let's start with the game this
morning for those who missed it. Tell us about this
late drama in the game between Canada and France at
the Olympics.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, well, it was certainly dramatic, and they left it
until the final moment in now when there was thirteen
minutes of stoppage time, and I think they ended up
playing around fifteen. But Vanessa yields left footed finish, you know,
the center back gets a rebounded Canada win two on
and now against Columbia if they win there lately through
to the next round and you know when the penalty
comes down that was supposed to pretty well eliminate Canada

(01:54):
from the tournament. That's not too bad of a result
for the Canadian group.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
BV Priestman released a statement right before the game. What
did it say.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
It said that she felt terribly and you know, she
apologized and she's willing to go ahead with whatever investigations come,
whether that's from FIFA, the IOC, Kende Soccer, at the
canadi Olympic Committee. Really, you know, every investigation that's going
to come throughout this. But I thought it was a
little bit suspect to you know, release a statement about
an hour before the lineup came out, and you know

(02:26):
that serves as a distraction to a player group that
already has so much weight on their shoulders from the
situation that, you know, I wonder whether there's some you know,
a rocky relationship there between Prismen and you know, if
she comes back into the group at some point. Of course,
she's suspended from footballing activities for a year, so I
don't imagine that she will. But she is still officially
the coach of this Canadian woman's national team is and

(02:48):
he's spent stepping in on the interm for now, and
we'll have to see. She does technically have a contract
at the end of twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
What would her motivation have possibly been for releasing a
statement at that time.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I mean, it might be that there's a bit of
a fight going on between her and the player group.
Maybe you know that she felt that the player group
has you know, tarnished the reputation of the Canadian woman's
national team by throwing her under the bus somewhat, and
maybe she feels like she's taking the fall for something
that wasn't her fault. But you know, from my perspective,

(03:21):
I do think that, you know, it's the head coach
that represents the group and she clearly is that fault
for a lot of this. So you know, that rocky
relationship doesn't necessarily surprise me, given the fact that you know,
she's at home and the Canadian group is still alive
and kicking at Paris twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Do you think it was an any why and admission
of guilt the wording of it. I'm going to cooperate
fully with everything coming my why was that on any
why bin for you? An admission of guilt here?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Not at all, I don't think so. You know, she
denied and sort of danced around questions in initial interviews
about whether she had used drones, and John Herdman, the
you know, former New Zealand woman's coach and former Canadian's
coach now you know, then went on to the came
in team is now at Toronto of CNMLS, also denied
that he had any drone footage and had ever used

(04:11):
drone at the World Cup or Olympics. So you know,
there's denying, denying, denying, and we'll see what the investigations
come up with. But I wouldn't buy that the Brisman
is too any cinemas well.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
What do you think the investigations will throw up.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I don't think much more than what we've already seen.
There's been a lot of reports from Canadian reporters, international
reporters about what, you know, this drone situation has been,
and it seems like this has been a you know,
systematic thing for Canadian soccer in the last little while.
It's a hefty punishment. Six points at the Olympic Games
practically kicks you out of the tournament and Canada has
done whatever they could to get you know, what's potentially

(04:49):
a perfect group stage and send them through to the
next round. But you know it's they've come down hard.
Canada soccer doesn't have a ton of money. The three
hundred thousand dollars Canadian is going to be a big
slap on the funding for Canada soccer that it's going
to be difficult. Then I think they're being made a
bit of an example from FIFA, And you know, I
wouldn't expect the Bret Prieston coaches another game with the

(05:12):
national team either.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Do you think any of the players knew.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm not sure there was a report yesterday that the
men's players did see drone footage of a Huntera's training
session in World Cup qualifying back in twenty twenty one.
So I do think the men's players knew when John
Herdman was their coach, who knows about the women's players.
That's not to say it didn't influence the game in
any way, because you know, the coach can see and

(05:41):
see the training sessions and enact tactics to counteract that.
But I'm not confident in saying that the players of
this women's national team. They seemed quite emotional that they
didn't know.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
And in terms of their response, I mean, you could
hardly write that script, could you, you know, goal in
the twelfth minute of added time to beat the host
to one and stay alive even with the six point deduction.
Do you sense that it may have galvanized the playing group.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
I think it might, you know, in some ways, it
seems like a team of destiny at this point that
a win against Columbia puts them through the next round
when they were pretty well all but eliminated. So it
was pretty exciting, and I think this is probably the
most determined group of the tournament.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
What do you say happening from here had just finally
been what is most likely to play out once the
Olympics is over and this investigation runs its course, what
do you sense as most likely?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
It'll take a lot of time for Canada to rebuild
the public trust in Canada soccer and public faith within
the national federation. But at the end of the day,
I mean, this is a team that really galvanized the
country at the Coop of America on the men's side,
and still has podiumed at the last three Olympics and
could very well podium at these games too. The players
showed today that even in you know, situations where their

(06:58):
backs are against the wall, everything's playing against them, they
can find a win in the dying moments. And they
played very well. That second half was probably one of
the best halves they've played in the life five or
so years. So you know, there's still a lot of
goodwill around this team. They're still a very good team.
I don't think they benefited, you know, extremely from any
of the drone footage, certainly not against New Zealand. You

(07:21):
know where New Zealand looked fine, but Kendo was just
the better team on the day. There's still a top
ten team in the world, and I think they'll remain
then and remain to find success, potentially more if they
move on to a new coach and sort of move
on from this era.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Thanks Ben, appreciate your time on Sports Talk here in
New Zealand. Ben Steiner, Toronto based Sports report for c BC.
For more from sports Talk, listen live to News Talks.
It'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.