I’m so appreciative of the opportunity to recruit in the specialty area of Public Relations and Corporate Communications. There’s never a shortage of examples to demonstrate how important it is to get the organization/corporate message right. From a promotional perspective, proactively working to get positive coverage for your company’s products or services, can be challenging, fun, frustrating, fulfilling…..depending on a number of variables.  On the reactive side though, dealing with an organization/company crisis that has already occurred, can take challenging to a whole new level. The impact negative publicity can have, and the response to it, is critical.

The spectacular Paris Olympics, which recently wrapped up, brought us breathtaking competition and innumerable memory-making moments, as the athletes demonstrated the exhilaration and agony of sports, after years of dedication and sacrifice.  But there was also no shortage of controversy, including Imane Khelif being bullied about her legitimacy as a woman (good on her for winning the gold amid all that pressure!), and the dispute around certain countries/athletes’ participation – whether they should be there at all, or how they should be represented. But the one that centered around Canada, unfortunately, was the notorious “drone gate” scandal, which reared its ugly head even before the opening ceremonies began.

You’d have to be living under a rock not to have heard that the Canadian women’s soccer team were caught spying on the New Zealand team prior to their match, their first of the tournament.  Two assistant coaches/analysts, immediately held accountable, were sent home, with the head coach, Bev Priestman, voluntarily stepping down, while pleading ignorance about the spying.  Sadly, evidence later suggested that that was likely not the case. In fact, Priestman later suggested that drone spying - let’s call it what it is, cheating - was not uncommon in Canadian Soccer. What?? How could this be? 

Canada Soccer did what needed to be done by cooperating with FIFA and the IOC when this all came to light, agreeing to dig into how endemic spying was/is in the Canadian soccer program.  There are discussions around the fact that our men’s team, which did so well earlier this summer in the COPA tournament, and even the women’s 2020 Olympic champions, could be affected.  There is no indication that any of the athletes, including those on the women’s team in Paris, had any knowledge of the drones. But unfortunately, they were the ones who were most impacted at the games.  What an incredible job they did to get to the quarter finals, despite the pressure they were under, and the six-point penalty imposed on them. 

But how did spying on the competition become the Canadian way?  If it is as endemic as it looks like it could be, there must have been a number of people on board within our soccer program. As a proud Canadian and a huge soccer fan, I join many Canadians in feeling embarrassed and hugely disappointed that the powers that be allowed this to happen.  

I’m sure there are a lot of honourable and honest people who are part of Canada Soccer and a lot more to this story will ultimately unfold, but the responsible people need to be held accountable and disciplined accordingly. It doesn’t get much higher profile than the Summer Olympic Games in the storied city of Paris. The whole world watched this unfold and many will continue to pay attention to how this story concludes.  The manner in which Soccer Canada deals with this scandal is going to be critical to their global reputation long term. They need to be transparent, take appropriate accountability and fall on their sword, if they are eventually going to successfully earn back the soccer world’s respect.  And that will take time.

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