How Canada's Olympic spy drone was discovered by New Zealand squad as defender Rebekah Stott reveals CANWNT players' heartfelt apology

Canada was deducted six points at the 2024 Olympic women's football tournament after a member of staff recorded two of New Zealand's training sessions ahead of the two sides meeting in the first round of group stage fixtures on July 25. Further consequences have seen head coach Bev Priestman suspended by FIFA for a year while Canada Soccer has begun an investigation into the act of spying, with details having emerged of further instances concerning both the men's and women's national teams.

It was Stott, who has won a century of caps for her country, that spotted the drone that sparked the whole scandal and she has now spoken at length about the events on The Women's Game, the podcast hosted by former United States women's national team star Sam Mewis.

"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 and then I hear this noise. I'm a bit of a drone enthusiast, I've got one myself, so I hear this noise, and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, is that a Mavic Pro?' Anyway, I look up to my left and sure enough, there's a freaking drone there," Stott recalled on the show. "I turned to our coach and I was like, 'Oh, there's a drone'. He went off and talked to our manager who got the security.

"To be a drone over our training session we were pretty sure that it was going to be a team. Obviously, we didn't know which team but it's not like a [scenic] area," she added. "We heard when we got back to the hotel that they caught the guy and then they said that it was someone from Canada and 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 obviously they had seen that whole training session and then we found out later that they had seen another training session, so it was pretty tough. They obviously have seen what we're doing and a few days before the game, we're working on tactics, of course. It was pretty bad."

Stott has played with several members of the Canada team before, including Kailen Sheridan, Lysianne Proulx and Janine Beckie, and received apologies from the players she spoke to before New Zealand faced the 2020 Olympic gold medallist on July 25.

"They were like, 'We're so sorry, but we had no idea'," she said. "I think you just have sympathy for them. They are not involved in this but at the same time, their federation has done this, so they do benefit from it. I think it put them in such a terrible position. But I mean, kudos to them. They got that six-point deduction and they were able to battle and get nine points from that to get them through [to the quarter-finals]. I think they did incredibly well without their head coach, their analyst, their assistant coach. Through that adversity, it all came together for them."

While Canada Soccer's investigation into the use of drones continues, Stott believes that "serious rules" around spying need to be implemented. "It was so weird having to go through that while we're still competing," she said. "If it is like a black and white rule, where if that happens, okay, this is what happens."