She was busted for cheating at the Olympics. Now she’s coaching in the A-League

A few days before Imane Khelif became the centre of the world’s attention, the biggest controversy at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris involved a drone. On the eve of New Zealand’s first women’s football match, Rebekah Stott spotted the craft hovering over the team’s training session.

“We were just doing throw-ins, and I was waiting for Ali Riley to throw me the ball and I hear this noise,” Stott told Sam Mewis, the former American international, on her podcast The Women’s Game last year.

“I’m a bit of a drone enthusiast, I’ve got one myself, and so I hear this noise, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh ... is that a Mavic Pro?’”

Quite aside from the fact that flying drones above people was illegal in France, Stott’s discovery unravelled one of the biggest scandals in women’s football history.

It turned out that the drone had been sent there by the Canadian national team, and that this was something they’d been doing for quite a while. Subsequent investigations by the Canadian media found that their junior and senior national teams, for both men and women, had been using drones as far back as 2016 to spy on opposition training sessions in a bid to gain insights on tactics and personnel.

Canada’s women were docked six points, hampering their bid to defend their Olympic title, and their coach Bev Priestman, one of her assistants and an analyst were all sent home. FIFA later banned the three of them from participating in any football-related activity for a year – and ending any chance that Football Australia, who have long admired Priestman’s coaching, would approach her to become the next Matildas coach.

Canada’s former head coach, Bev Priestman, is now in charge of the Wellington Phoenix’s ALW team.Credit: AP

So when Wellington Phoenix appointed Priestman’s wife, Emma Humphries, a Kiwi, to head up the club’s academy, then announced that they would reveal the identity of the new head coach of their A-League Women’s team in July – which just happened to be when Priestman’s suspension was due to expire – all signs pointed to one thing.

On Wednesday, three days after the ban ended, the worst-kept secret in the game was confirmed: Priestman has signed a two-year deal with the Phoenix, becoming arguably the most credentialled coach in ALW history, and also the most contentious.

Though there was some irony that the country against whom Priestman was caught spying on would also be the one to facilitate her coaching comeback, the 39-year-old is no stranger to New Zealand; it’s her wife’s homeland, and Priestman once worked as New Zealand Football’s director of football development and contributed to their national football plan.

That was before she branched out on her own as a head coach, working at four FIFA Women’s World Cups, three Olympic Games, three FIFA youth world cups and being twice shortlisted for The Best FIFA Women’s Coach award across stints as an assistant with England’s Lionesses and Canada’s junior and senior national teams.

Drone-gate is the only black mark on her record, and her unveiling – while widely anticipated – has divided football fans. Some believe she has served her time and deserves another opportunity. Others feel a little more uneasy.

Priestman faced a grilling from the New Zealand press, fronting a 26-minute media conference in Wellington in which she said she couldn’t speak in detail about what had happened with Canada, but was open, honest and emotional about how it had impacted her, and how she felt she was so “traumatised” that she could no longer live in the country.

“I didn’t feel safe,” Priestman said.

“That’s being brutally honest. It was very difficult for my family, and I have to live with that.

“Obviously it was an absolute media frenzy. You’ve got people knocking at your door and everything, and I’ve got a little boy. Without going into too much detail, it was very difficult. We knew we had to get out of that country.”

Priestman said sealing her return to coaching felt like Christmas Day to her, but acknowledged she would have to earn the trust and respect of a lot of people.

“There’s certain values that I hold and unfortunately, you know, things around me have clouded my judgement,” Priestman said.

“So for me personally, I just want to get back to ... I love working with people. I love getting the best out of people. I love being on a football pitch. I just want to create a special moment for this city, for this country and move forward.”

The Phoenix say they have doubled their investment in their women’s team, which is yet to play finals football in the ALW, and that securing Priestman as coach is a statement of their ambitions.

“We’re really pleased to be able to welcome Bev back to football,” Phoenix chairman Rob Morrison said. “We all know she’s had a period of time away from the game, but we understand the circumstances and we’re really comfortable with this appointment.”

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