Melbourne City captain and New Zealand star Rebekah Stott revealed how she helped discover the drone controversy at the Olympic Games in Paris.
All eyes were on the Football Ferns before a ball was even kicked at the 2024 Paris Games after Canada were punished following their drone spying scandal.
In one of the biggest punishments in Olympic women’s football history, Canada were stripped of six points and had three coaches banned – including head coach Bev Priestman – following a FIFA investigation into drone spying allegations after New Zealand reported a drone flying over their closed training session ahead of the team’s opener on July 26.
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Canada won the match 2-1 and progressed to the knockout phase but coach Priestman was suspended from all football-related activity for at least one year, as well as her two assistants while Canada Soccer was fined almost $350,000.
City star Stott recalled how the scandal unfolded in France.
“We were just doing throw-ins or something like that and I was just kind of waiting for Ali Riley to throw me the ball,” Stott told The Women’s Game.
“Then I hear this noise and I’m a bit of a drone enthusiast. I have one myself.
“So I hear this noise, oh my gosh, is that a mavic pro?! I look up to my left and sure enough, there’s a fricking drone there.
“I was like what? Then I turned to our coach and I was like there’s a drone. He was like, ‘what?’. He went off and talked to our manager to get security.
“It didn’t fly away. It was kind of hanging around… it was around 70m (away) then it started to go higher when it realised we noticed it.”
Stott, who won the Liberty A-League Premiership with City last season, continued: “They went to security and said there’s a drone. (Security) were like it’s going away now and we’re like, no.
“Then they (New Zealand staff) talked to security and cops who were on the other side of the road. We carried on training because it wasn’t in sight but then we saw it slowly start to go down but it was going down really close. Like it was on top of the hill just on the road which we drove past on the way to training.”
Stott, who captained the A-Leagues All Stars Women against Women’s Super League (WSL) giants Arsenal in May, added: “We saw the security and cops on the other side – the cops on a motorbike went by and the security were running up this hill. We were like oh my gosh, they are going to get it.
“We heard when we got back to the hotel that they caught the guy… then they said it was someone from Canada. We were like oh my gosh. How has this just happened right next to our training? It was so wild.
“… it was a bit unsettling because they had seen that whole training session. We found out later they had seen another training session. It was pretty tough – they had seen what we’re doing. A few days before the game we’re working on tactics of course.”
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