Mander breaks silence on drone scandal, says spying part of culture at Canada Soccer

Canada players react after losing a women's quarterfinal soccer match against Germany at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, at Marseille Stadium in Marseille, France. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Jasmine Mander, the former Canadian assistant coach handed a one-year ban by FIFA for her role in the Paris Olympic drone-spying scandal, has broken her silence.

In a first-person account on The Players’ Tribune website, Mander apologizes for the incident. But she says while she knew Canada Soccer spied on other teams, she did not know that Canadian team analyst Joey Lombardo would be flying a drone that day at a New Zealand training session or that there were even laws in France limiting where drones could be flown.

“I messed up,” Mander wrote. “I really did. I should have said something. Spoken up. Rocked the boat. 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.”

Mander says she was drawn into the scandal because Lombardi texted her from the police station.

She says she never raised questions about spying on other teams, because it was par for the course.

“When I started in the professional game three years prior, I slowly realized that watching the training sessions of your opponents was actually quite normal,” she said. “I know that will sound shocking, but it’s just the reality … 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.”

“Of course, I understood on some level that watching teams’ game prep was immoral, but when I was new at Team Canada, the youngest member of the coaching staff by several years, I thought, ‘Oh, I guess this is normal at this level,’” she added. “And 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.”

Mander believes it is unfair that she, Lombardi and head coach Bev Priestman were the only staffers identified and punished at the time.

Canada Soccer revealed recently that 14 coaches and administrative staff members had been disciplined in the wake of the drone scandal. But it did not identify the 14 or detail their punishment.

“To be clear, I have no problem with being held accountable and taking responsibility for my involvement, and I have spent more than a year doing so,” Mander wrote. “But when 14 people are disciplined and only three of us are named and shamed in public? That’s still very hard for me to accept.”

Mander says she was “a ghost” for several months after returning to Canada.

“My lawyer told me to see a psychologist, to make sure I document my mental state. I visited my doctor, who had me fill out a depression assessment that asked if I had suicidal thoughts. I ticked the box that said SOMETIMES.”

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

Put on paid suspension by Canada Soccer, she said she did not resign — as Lombardi did — because she wanted to share her side of the story as part of the independent investigation.

“But when the report from that investigation came out last November, I was disappointed. I read it online like everyone else, and 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?”

Mander said it took months to recover.

“Things only started to get better for me last January. New calendar, fresh start. I looked in the mirror, and I needed to move forward.”

She hopes the “full picture of everything that went down” will come out.

“Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I should have done so much better. If you still think I was an idiot at the Olympics, you’re probably right. Just understand that I was part of an organization, and that I simply tried to do my best. I know that it wasn’t good enough. I never wanted any of this to happen. Honestly, it has felt like breaking up with 40 million people at once.”

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2025

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press