It has been barely more than a year since the Canadian women's national soccer team made global headlines at the 2024 Olympics for a spying scandal that unearthed a "long-term, deeply embedded systemic culture" of cheating, as Canada Soccer CEO Kevin Blue described it at the time.
The defending Olympic gold medalists at the time, Canada, were days from their tournament opener in Saint-Etienne, France when a drone was caught spying on a practice session of their first opponent, New Zealand. French authorities quickly traced the drone back to a Canada Soccer staff member, and almost as quickly reports alleged Canada had been spying on opponents for years.
In the aftermath, the Canada coaching staff, including head coach Bev Priestman, were disgraced and issued one-year bans by FIFA. Priestman has since returned to the sport, almost exactly one year later being named the head coach of a club in New Zealand last month.
But for the players on that Canadian team accused of cheating, the fallout is still being felt and players are still picking up the pieces, some 13 months later.
The players said from the start that they were unaware of what their coaching staff had been up to, but their achievements -- including Canada's first and only Olympics gold medal in in 2021 -- were immediately called into question.
"What we went through as a group was really tough and the backlash that we got was rough, and [people are] still poking jokes around it," Canada goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan told ESPN recently.
"I think it's been a little bit easier to accept now," she added. "Obviously, then, heat of the moment, everything hurts and everything stings. We all kind of had to shut down but that group is just incredible and they're like family. We kind of came out of that knowing that those are the people we'll be able to trust for life."
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At the time, Canada was given a six-point deduction but was allowed to continue competing in the Olympics, winning all three games in the group stage to finish with 3 points, enough to make the quarterfinals of the 12-team tournament. They lost to Germany in a penalty shootout in that quarterfinal -- a remarkable accomplishment under the circumstances -- but the fallout was far from over. An investigation soon began to determine the extent of the Canadian program's cheating.
As forward Janine Sonis told ESPN last month, there was some "dread" over the idea that a deeper investigation would mean reliving their French nightmare in those months to follow. Findings from that investigation, released in November 2024, revealed a "pattern of an unacceptable culture and insufficient oversight within the national teams," as Blue described it. Priestman, who had already been suspended until then, was officially fired at that time.
Investigators confirmed that players did not view the drone footage in question at the Olympics, a point that active and former players made throughout the Olympics. Christine Sinclair -- Canada's former captain and the world's leading international goal-scorer who retired prior to the 2024 Olympics -- said at the time that there was never drone footage viewed or discussion of it in her 23 years on the team.
Players, however, were -- and still are -- dealing with the ramifications of having their names adjacent to one of the biggest scandals in international women's soccer history. Now, they are trying to move forward.
Shifting focus toward the 2027 World Cup
Sheridan couldn't say for sure when she felt like she had moved on emotionally from those difficult few weeks in France, but it was "definitely not in 2024."
Both she and Sonis, who was part of Canada's bronze medal run at the 2016 Olympics and gold medal triumph in 2021, said they are grateful for how their teammates responded to the controversy.
"I remember being in those rooms until the wee hours of the morning putting together statements and putting together gameplans, trying to understand how to move forward with a limited staff, limited energy," Sheridan said. "We had to wake up and play a game -- not just any game, an Olympic game. We had to fight for our lives."
The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Canada's appeal of the six-point deduction only a few hours before their opening game against New Zealand. Canada's players had, until that point, held out hope that they could reverse their punishment from FIFA.
"People weren't eating, people weren't sleeping, and now you're going out on an international football pitch and being expected to perform," Sonis said. "And I think in a lot of ways, we overperformed from the expectation of the outside world."
"And on the other side of it," Sheridan added, "people got what they deserved in a way but also people make mistakes, and sometimes you've just got to take the punishment on the chin, and I think they did. On to the next for everybody and we've got to focus on ourselves."
Still, players needed a sense of direction last fall in order to move forward after months of uncertainty. They needed some kind of tangible turning point to set a course toward the 2027 World Cup, with the World Cup -- unlike the Olympics -- being a tournament where their results have regressed in recent cycles.
Canada Soccer's hiring of Casey Stoney as the team's new permanent head coach in January finally provided that new chapter.
Stoney said that the resilience of the players at the 2024 Olympics, which she witnessed as an observer, is one of the reasons she took the job despite the controversy surrounding the team.
"When I came in, it was about building trust," Stoney told ESPN in July. "I can't hide away: they'd been let down. And as a head coach, I'm coming in to try and build that trust, build those relationships to make sure that the players can trust me, trust that when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. That I'm going to lead with integrity and values and I'm going to put them first and it's going to be a player's environment, but we're going to be high performance."
Building trust is a unique, time-consuming process. For some coaches and teams, that might mean lightening the mood, like when Pia Sundhage famously brought a guitar to her first meeting as U.S. women's national team coach in 2007 and sang to a locker room fractured by public in-fighting.
"Casey did not come in with a guitar, I can tell you that," Sonis said, laughing.
Transparency is the key to building trust, both Stoney and players said. It is also the thing that Canadian players felt they had been missing.
"When she first came in, she was very transparent and blunt," Sheridan said. "And I think we needed that, because we had just come out of a time when we were guessing and unsure and there was a curtain in front of us, and we couldn't see what was going on behind it. I think it's massive for us to be able to see what's going on and really feel the work together instead of, there's two sides."
Sheridan knew what to expect from Stoney, having already played for her at San Diego Wave FC in prior seasons. But Sheridan said that Stoney needs time to build that same trust with a group "jaded" by last year's events.
Sonis succinctly described Stoney's style: "Excuse my language -- she's a no-bull---- type of person."
Stoney's no-nonsense demeanor was on display after the team's 3-0 loss to the United States in a friendly in July in Washington, D.C.
All three goals that Canada conceded stemmed from set plays, and the U.S. comfortably won a game that both teams had billed as an important benchmark on the early road to the 2027 World Cup. For the USWNT, the victory confirmed that head coach Emma Hayes' process of deepening the player pool was working.
For Canada, the loss was a harsh wake-up call -- "a kick in the ass," as Sheridan called it. Stoney eviscerated her team after the match, calling out poor individual performances and saying that players need to play more minutes with their clubs if they want to earn time on the field with Canada.
"Talk is cheap," Stoney said in the moments after the loss. "We can keep talking about winning the World Cup, we can talk about the things that we are going to do. We can keep talking about what we're going to do, or we can actually put things into action."
Turning the page amid lingering doubts
Canada's 2024 Olympic story will inevitably serve as a backdrop to the team's World Cup preparations.
An investigation conducted for Canada Soccer last year still left doubts behind. It confirmed that "drone footage was not viewed by women's national team players." It also confirmed "acts of improper surveillance predating the 2024 Paris Olympics," but said no evidence of the behavior was found at the 2021 Olympics. (Last year, U.S. Soccer sources detailed to ESPN previous spying incidents involving Canada, although not at an Olympics.)
Priestman's one-year ban ended in late July. Within days, she was announced as the new head coach of Wellington Phoenix, a New Zealand-based team in Australia's A-League.
"I think everybody involved will certainly have regrets," Priestman said in her introductory press conference, where she added that she "didn't feel safe" in Canada after the Olympics. It was the first time she publicly addressed the cheating scandal.
"There's certain values that I hold, and unfortunately things around me have clouded my judgment in that moment," she added.
Attempts by ESPN to speak further with Priestman about the drone incidents were not successful.
When reached for comment by ESPN about a reported settlement between Priestman and Canada Soccer, a federation spokesperson said: "We are unable to provide comments due to privacy and human resource laws that govern us as a federation. Canada Soccer has moved on and is focused on strengthening our organization and ensuring our players are best positioned to compete on the global stage."
Priestman, who had worked for Canada's youth national teams from 2013-2018, took over the senior head coaching job in 2020 from Kenneth Heiner-Møller.
During last year's Olympics, FIFA released an email from March 2024 as part of evidence for its ruling. In the email, Priestman seeks advice from a redacted recipient on how to handle a performance analyst's refusal to spy on opponents, stating, "there is a whole operation on the men's side" and "all top 10 teams do it."
Canada Soccer's summary of the investigation also stated that "potential violations of the Canada Soccer Code of Conduct and Ethics by the former head coach of the men's national team were identified," but the redacted report summary offered few details.
John Herdman coached Canada's men's team from 2018-2023. He also coached Canada's women's national team from 2011-2018, where Priestman was one of his assistant coaches.
Herdman said during last year's Olympics that, "I'm highly confident that in my time as a head coach at an Olympic Games or World Cup, we've never been involved in any of those activities."
Investigators noted that they were unable to speak with Herdman due to "scheduling issues." Herdman resigned as head coach of MLS' Toronto FC in November, two weeks after the investigation was released. In March, a three-person independent disciplinary committee issued a written admonishment to Herdman for unspecified "misconduct under the Canada Soccer Disciplinary Code."
Reached by ESPN last month, Herdman likened the letter of admonishment to "less than a yellow card" and said, "the disciplinary committee were able to clearly detach any involvement from myself with anything related to the Olympic Games." Herdman said that those events are "in the past."
"There's a lot [to clarify], but it's all about timing," Herdman said. "At this moment in time, it's just time to move forward -- for the game, for myself, for my family. It's important to look forward."
Last year's investigation cleared Blue and Canada Soccer president Peter Augruso of any knowledge of drone surveillance at or prior to the Olympics.
Sonis, who along with Sheridan is a player representative on the team's union, backed the federation's leadership and the "collaborative" relationship it now has with players.
Each player emphasized an important finding from the investigation: the drone footage of New Zealand's practice sessions was never shown to players. Sheridan said: "It's just important that we separate the group of people responsible [for the spying scandal] from the group of people who were able to fight for Canada and really make us proud."
"Going forward, it will never be like that again," Sheridan added of the use of spying, "and I think it's important that we put trust in people who will not let that happen again -- and make sure we hold people accountable, set a standard, and make sure we don't let anything like that in our sport or in any sport."
New Canada women's head coach Casey Stoney insists the team are ready to move on from the drone spying scandal at the Paris Olympics.
The 2027 World Cup will be Canada's next opportunity to change the narrative around the team. Winning that tournament could be considered a lofty goal as other national teams appear have improved and appear to be leapfrogging Canada. But Stoney & Co. have two years to deepen the player pool and refine their tactics.
Reality is also that many casual global observers will become reacquainted with Canada for the first time since the 2024 Olympics -- such is the nature of increased attention at major tournaments.
"As an individual, there's a frustration with the story that follows us about that, but that is just reality when something happens, and you as a team are associated with a behavior or an action," Sonis said.
"That's just life. People are gonna remember that, especially when it was as big of a story as it was. I'm not going into the World Cup feeling like we have something to prove in that sense, like, 'Oh, we had nothing to do with it.' That's already been said; we know that we had nothing to do with it. I can speak for myself when I say that I don't have that feeling."
Stoney told ESPN that it's "not a revolution; it's an evolution" of a team that has been ranked inside FIFA's top 10 globally for almost a decade.
A former England international defender, Stoney she wants her team convert more chances, and to possess the ball with a purpose and be better in transition moments -- an area where they were exposed at times against the USWNT in July.
She will be the first Canada coach to have the benefit of an active professional domestic league, the Northern Super League. The next World Cup will be Canada's first since 1999 without Sinclair, the world's leading international goal-scorer. A new generation is being ushered into the senior team, and Sonis said she is excited to see young players like Emma Regan, Holly Ward and Kayla Briggs all develop.
Stoney and her players hope this development can pay off with a better performance at the 2027 World Cup. The Canadians earned back-to-back bronze medals prior to their 2021 gold medal, but World Cup success has been elusive: they were quarterfinalists on home soil in 2015, followed by an exit in the round of 16 in 2019 and the group stage in 2023 (plus group-stage exits 2007 and 2011).
It is hard to explain the dichotomy of World Cup struggles and Olympic success other than that the World Cup is a "different kind of beast," as Sonis said. The World Cup features a much larger field of teams, meaning more competition. Canadians also pride themselves on fitness, which is helpful for grinding out results in the truncated Olympic schedule.
Canada's best finish at a World Cup came in 2003, when a then 20-year-old Sinclair helped lead the team to fourth place. It is a memory that predates the birth of some of Canada's youngest rising stars.
"Success is winning. It's simple: We're going there to win," Sonis said of the 2027 World Cup. "We believe 100% that we have the quality, ambition and position to win a World Cup. I would love for us to translate our Olympic success to the World Cup stage."