Jasmine Mander makes first public comments on Canada Soccer drone scandal

Jasmine Mander, the assistant coach of the Canadian women’s national soccer team who was at the centre of last year’s drone scandal at the Paris Olympics, said on Wednesday that she felt she had no choice but to go along with Canada Soccer’s spying on other teams because working for the organization led her to believe it was a normal part of the global game.

“At first, I was really surprised by this, but the longer I worked in the game, the more I heard firsthand that this kind of stuff really did happen around the world,” she wrote in an article published by The Players’ Tribune, the athlete-friendly site specializing in first-person essays. “The very best in the game did not bat an eye at it.”

Mander’s article, titled What Actually Happened During the Canada Drone Scandal, is her first public comment on the episode that rocked the 2024 Canadian Olympic delegation.

She offered a blow-by-blow of the confusing hours after she received a text from Joey Lombardi, an analyst with the team, telling her that he had been taken into custody by French police.

Within days, Mander, head coach Bev Priestman and Lombardi, who had been operating a drone over a New Zealand practice, were suspended for a year by FIFA, which also fined Canada Soccer $315,000 and penalized the women’s team six points, effectively knocking them out of the tournament.

From November, 2024: Canada Soccer’s culture problem

Mander wrote that the only reason she was connected to the scandal is that Lombardi had texted her from the police station and that she was not, despite reporting to the contrary, his supervisor. She also insisted that she didn’t know he was going to operate a drone that day – only that he had gone “to gather information about New Zealand.”

Mander wrote she was given scant notice that she and Lombardi would be sent home from the Olympics and named in a public statement – too little time to formulate a formal objection.

The three staffers were fired by Canada Soccer last November after an independent review found systemic use of spying and a toxic culture in the national sport organization.

Mander’s article details online abuse she received in the wake of the episode, including what she says were hundreds of comments sent as she was flying home from the Olympics, some of which called her a “cheater” and a “disgrace,” and urging her to kill herself or “GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY.” (She was born in Richmond, B.C.)

“I didn’t expect to be called the N-word,” she wrote. “I’m not really someone who has ever felt her race, even as a young woman in sports, but this all felt different. It felt like there was a group of people who specifically wanted to see me punished, and who blamed my race or upbringing for what happened.”

“The story, and my photo, were so widely circulated that I started to feel like Canada’s Most Wanted.”

Mander wrote that, in the months that followed the Olympics, she was “exhausted from the trauma” and “the grief of losing so many people and my career in one swoop.” Her family worried she was suicidal.

Mander had been hired in 2021 as a performance analyst but her portfolio grew quickly. She suggests in the article that she was young and impressionable, and eager to do whatever was necessary.

“Like many people within the organization, I knew that there were attempts at Canada Soccer to watch other teams train. And I accepted it. I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

She adds: “I wanted to help the team. Look for any edge. I was 25 when I started at Canada Soccer, and I didn’t want to be that person saying, ‘Guys, listen … should we be doing this?’ I wish now that I would have. That I could have been that person. A bit stronger. I definitely could have done more to avoid this scandal for everyone, and I’m sorry that I didn’t, especially as a Canadian.”

An investigation by The Globe and Mail, published last November, found that Mander had been an integral part of Canada Soccer’s spying efforts.

Last month, Canada Soccer disclosed that it had disciplined 14 coaches and administrative staff in the wake of the incident, but did not name anyone in its statement. In her article, Mander wrote that she does not object to “being held accountable and taking responsibility,” for her involvement, but the fact that 14 were disciplined, “and only three of us are named and shamed in public? That’s still very hard for me to accept.”

She also wrote that she was disappointed by the independent review published last November by Canada Soccer. “I don’t think it brought enough attention to the actual process behind the culture at Canada Soccer. It was very convenient that so many names were redacted. I couldn’t help but think, ‘If you’re going to take out so much, why post the report at all?’”

John Herdman, the former head coach of both the women’s and men’s senior national teams, was also named in the report. Last March, he received a written admonishment by an independent panel after being found to have committed misconduct under the Canada Soccer Disciplinary Code. He resigned as head coach of Toronto FC last November. He is no longer coaching in Canada.

In the aftermath of the episode, the Globe reported that staffers had complained to the Canada Soccer executive almost a year before the Olympics about pressure from Mander to spy on opponents. Dean Crawford, a lawyer for Mander, told the Globe in a statement at the time that the “allegations made by others to you about Ms. Mander’s involvement in various attempts to obtain surveillance of opponents are not accurate.”

On Tuesday, Mander referred a query by the Globe to Mr. Crawford, who declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Canada Soccer said the organization had no comment.