Canadians split on FIFA’s Olympics penalty for soccer drone spying, new poll says

Most Canadians are not exactly outraged by the punishment meted out to the Canadian women’s soccer team over its Olympic drone spying scandal, according to the results of a new poll released Thursday.

Seventy per cent of the respondents to a Leger poll on the Paris Olympic Games said they were either very or somewhat familiar with the scandal, after a member of the Canadian team's coaching staff was caught using a drone to spy on New Zealand team practices before the start of competition.

"It certainly captured pretty good attention, the fact that Canada got caught using drones to spy on their opponents’ practices," said Andrew Enns, Leger’s executive vice-president for central Canada.

The team was docked six points and three coaching staff members were given one-year suspensions after the scandal came to light as the Olympic Games kicked off in late July.

Overall, 39 per cent of respondents to the poll said the punishment from the governing body FIFA was fair and 32 per cent said it was unfair.

Canadians who were familiar with the story were more likely to take a position, as 47 per cent agreed with the sanctions, while 39 per cent called them unfair. 

Enns pointed out stories about cheating at the Olympics tend to involve the use of illicit performance enhancing drugs—not drones. "It just seemed a little unusual for Canada to get caught in the middle of something like this." 

The six-point sanction was the equivalent of wiping two wins from the three-game group stage, but the team beat the odds to make it to the quarterfinal. 

On Saturday, they lost that game to Germany on penalty kicks after neither team scored in regulation or extra time. There has been no suggestion the players had any involvement in the scandal.

Enns suggested that some of the people who consider the penalty unfair "probably felt that Canada is not alone in this and maybe we’re just keeping up with other teams."

The poll of 1,521 Canadians was conducted over the weekend. It was weighted to account for demographic differences, but doesn’t have a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.

Nearly three-quarters of Canadians, or 72 per cent, have tuned into the Paris Games, which will wrap up Sunday, the poll suggests.

Ten per cent said they were following the games very closely, while 34 per cent said they were watching "just a little here and there." In comparison, 28 per cent of respondents said they planned to watch the Paralympic Games at the end of the month.

People are still turning to their televisions for the bulk of their Olympics-watching, with 69 per cent typically following on TV compared to the 27 per cent who tend to opt to watch on streaming services. Nearly one-third of the respondents, who could give multiple answers, said they followed the Games on social media.