Football Ferns' Katie Kitching in action during the Paris Olympics 2024 Football game between Football Ferns vs Canada at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, in Saint-Étienne, France. Thursday 25 July 2024. Copyright Photo: Raghavan Venugopal / www.photosport.nz Photo: Copyright © Photosport Ltd 2024 www.photosport.nz
New Zealand sporting authorities have welcomed sanctions against Canada over its use of spy drones, but say they do not address the impact on the Football Ferns.
The Ferns lost 2-1 to Canada in their opening match of the Paris Olympics, amidst controversy over the Canadian use of drones to monitor the Football Ferns' training practices.
It subsequently emerged drones had been used by the team previously.
The Canadian women's team was deducted six points, fined 200,000 Swiss francs (NZ$383,855) and their head coach banned for a year in a case that rocked the Paris Games' football tournament.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) said in a statement the sanctions were a strong signal, but did not go far enough to help the New Zealand team.
"The sanctions today are a strong signal from FIFA that indicate the significance of the breach. We do note, however, that while these sanctions have a punitive impact on Canada, they did not address the direct impact on the New Zealand women's football team.
"The NZOC continues to support the players and management as they prepare for their upcoming games against Colombia and France."
The sentiment was echoed by New Zealand Football. It said while it was good to see swift action, the issue remained that the New Zealand team were affected by Canada's actions.
"It is good to see swift action has been taken against Canada… however the issue still remains that they likely had an unfair sporting advantage gained by filming our key tactical sessions, when they played New Zealand and won by a single goal.
"It's disappointing that New Zealand has been placed in such a position by actions of this nature, that impact the entire tournament, but now our focus is firmly on our remaining games against Colombia and France."
FIFA, the sport's ruling body, made the call to strip the reigning Olympic champions' points. They drop to minus three points in Group A with just two matches left to play, a tough ask to make it to the next round.
Canada still might appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Kevin Blue, Canada Soccer chief executive and general secretary, said the sanctions were "excessively punitive".
