Dem
51
GOP
49
It's Olympics time! That means that, for some athletes and nations, it's time to reveal their greatness to the world. And for other athletes and nations, well, dirty secrets will be aired for a global audience.
The Canadians, and, more particularly, the Canadian women's soccer team, find themselves in that second category right now. On July 22, the New Zealand women's team was practicing on a field in Saint-Étienne, France, when they noticed a drone flying overhead. The various news stories are not especially clear on what happened next, but somehow the French police got involved, and figured out that the pilot of the drone was Joseph Lombardi, who is a staff member of Canada Soccer. As you can probably guess, Canada was scheduled to play New Zealand (on July 25). Canada ended up winning that game, 2-1.
The victory was a bit hollow, however. Since that game, "le poop" has hit "le fan," as they say in Canada. An investigation, conducted with great alacrity, found that this was not an isolated incident, and that cheating had become "systemic" with the team. Lombardi, head coach Beverly Priestman and assistant coach Jasmine Mander were suspended from working in soccer for a year (and presumably won't find it easy to get work once that year is out). The suspension was handed down by FIFA, and so applies to any soccer organization that is a member of that body. In other words, moving to Japan or the Netherlands or Chile isn't going to open any new opportunities. In addition, the Canadian women's team was docked six points in the Olympic standings. They still qualified for the second (and knockout) round, but will have to face much tougher teams.
We trust the lesson here is clear, but just in case, we'll spell it out. If you live in Seattle, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, or other northerly cities, always keep one eye on the sky, in case of unfriendly drones. Who knows how much intel the 'Nades have already collected; hopefully it is not too late. That concludes today's public service announcement. (Z)