U.S. Soccer aware of prior Canada spying incidents - sources - ESPN

MARSEILLE, France — When news first broke of Canada's Olympic soccer team being caught using a drone to spy on an opponent's training session, there was significant shock and surprise among many athletes and officials.

Just not at the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The episode in France — which led to the team being penalized six points at these Games, as well as the head coach and two staffers being banned from soccer for a year — is just the latest in a long pattern of similar circumstances involving Canadian teams attempting to view other teams' closed practices, multiple sources with connections to U.S. Soccer told ESPN. And there have been frequent instances in which American teams were the targets.

Asked why U.S. Soccer never went to a governing body like CONCACAF or FIFA to investigate Canada Soccer, one source pointed to the larger relationship between the federations — they worked for years to bid together, along with Mexico, for the 2026 World Cup, for example — and the inevitable awkwardness such a claim would create.

«It wasn't worth it with so many bigger-ticket issues out there,» the source said. «But that doesn't mean it didn't matter.»

Among several specific instances in recent years that are often recounted among U.S. Soccer officials, sources told ESPN, is an incident during a training camp in January 2021. Both federation's men's teams were practicing in Florida at the IMG Academy, and on the day before the teams were set to stage a scrimmage against each other, the United States team was training at the facility's soccer stadium.

During training, a team security guard noticed a man sitting in the otherwise-empty adjacent football stadium watching the U.S. practice. The security guard approached the man and