Canada appealing six-point penalty in Olympic soccer competition

The Canadian women’s soccer team’s Olympic story took another dramatic twist on Monday.

Canada Soccer and the Canadian Olympic Committee announced they will appeal FIFA’s sanctions to the Canadian women’s soccer team in the midst of a drone spying scandal.

On Saturday, FIFA deducted six points from Canada in the Olympic tournament and banned three coaches for one year each after a staffer was caught using a drone to spy on New Zealand team practices before the start of competition.

Notably, the COC and Canada Soccer are only appealing the six-point penalty, not the one-year suspensions.

Canada will challenge the sanctions at the Court of Arbitration’s special Olympic court in Paris. The appeal will likely be heard on Tuesday and a decision will be issued on Wednesday.

“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,” the COC said in a statement.

Canadian head coach Bev Preisman was one of the coaches suspended and took accountability for her actions in her first public comments on the scandal Sunday in a statement issued by her lawyers.

“I am absolutely heartbroken for the players, and I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the impact this situation has had on all of them,” Priestman said.

Canada beat New Zealand in its opener 2-1 on Thursday but then the sanctions were applied by FIFA just two days later, putting the Canadians at minus-3 points in the group stage standings despite the win in their opener. 

However, even amidst the chaos, Canada still managed to pull off a stunning last-second win over France on Sunday to bring its point total in the group stage back to zero. 

As it currently stands the maximum point total for Canada in the group stage would be three points, provided the reigning champions beat Colombia on Wednesday in Nice.

If the Canadians manage to pull off the victory over the Colombians, they will have a very good chance at advancing to the knockout stage and will keep their hopes of defending their Olympic gold medal alive.

– with files from CP