General Discussion on CMNT

[RS]

1 hour ago, BigMo said:

Its not a coincidence that this exact story, got virtually zero attention when it popped up during the mens WCQ cycle. The Hondurans also returned the favour then and flew a drone over our practice at BMO.  I dont think this even got covered in TSN or any Candian media outlet.

Ironically enough, this was also illegal as BMO is within 5 km of the Island Airport.

[Kent]

2 hours ago, costarg said:

Pretty sure there is nothing in the rule book about dropping a bee hive on the keeper during a PK, but it still shouldn’t be done. 

When I was curious about which rules were broken, I was expecting something around teams being allotted enough practice time and facilities. I wasn't expecting anything specifically around flying a drone overhead, but maybe something like getting x number of practice sessions with privacy from opposing teams or something. Anything more than "respect fair play".

[BigMo]

20 minutes ago, RS said:

Ironically enough, this was also illegal as BMO is within 5 km of the Island Airport.

It’s true but this was considered so much of a nonstory it wasnt even picked up by either major sports broadcaster. In fact I’m quite sure only the Honduran media reported the BMO incident. 

[RS]

4 minutes ago, BigMo said:

It’s true but this was considered so much of a nonstory it wasnt even picked up by either major sports broadcaster. In fact I’m quite sure only the Honduran media reported the BMO incident. 

Because one incident happened before a WCQ match attended by 15,000 people and the other happened at the Olympics.

[DigzTFC]

I think Kevin Blue's comments are unbelievably reckless and have overarching legal implications.  I've never seen a CEO come out and, without a thorough investigation, implicate his current and former staff and provide additional information than reporters were asking for.  It doesn't matter if you say "anecdotal evidence" and then say the evidence.  I simply cannot believe it.  He's substantiating the evidence by stating it in the press whether it is real or not.

He went on to say that the issue is systemic (that means the whole organization), that this issue proceeded Jesse Marsch, Bev Priestman which only leaves John Herdman.  Herdman started in 2011 with the women's team.  Drone regulations were only established in the 2010's.  "Anecdotally", he just defamed Herdman in the press without a third party investigation or even interviewing him, and then went on to say Priestman was carrying on these practices, and the inherited staff of the men's side were doing it, in at least one instance, during Copa America.

He said Jesse Marsch knew about the Copa America incident "after the fact at a minimum". Just let that sit for a second.  No one asked about Copa America.  He said it without anyone asking.  He also may have implicated himself because if he knew at the time about the Copa America incident and did nothing, other employees may have viewed that as tacit approval that the CSA didn't care.  I'm sure there isn't an internal memo that says drone are an unacceptable practice.

Unbelievable, if he ends up firing any of the women's program (which is inevitable) he will have to fire people on the men's side.  You cannot have different measuring sticks legally. I am shocked at the level of legal ineptitude on display and lack of media training.   The CSA better have a good lawyer to clean up his mess.  I'd imagine he feels pretty good about how that went too.  You think the CSA is broke now? Wait until they get through the lawyer bills.  It doesn't matter if the problem preceded him.  The tacit approval of drone usage existed in the organization and these employees would have a legal argument that no one ever corrected their behavior and it was a known practice, the CSA purchased the equipment with the known intent, and hired performance analyst with flying drones as part of the job description, and with that tacit approval, there are no grounds to fire them.  Most likely, you've got 3-6 employees your going to have to payout plus lawyer fees.

But hey, what a great guy.

Unreal.....

 

 

 

Edited July 26 by DigzTFC

[gigi riva]

All this drone crap enough is enough. Like Canada is the only nation that does this give me a break , for years I have had to watch Canadian teams  go into matchs  play in crappy conditions , have shit / urine thrown at them , have had  bs calls go against them ie 2012 semi final olympics ,  and 2007  Gold Cup semi final . even in the last Copa we had our players head butted, spat on , kicked etc yet nothing happened .  ya this  does suck and I am glad the culprits are dealt with . but lets move on 

[gigi riva]

Guys other countries have had scandals that would make our drone situation look like minor , Italy for example seems like every 10 years seem to have match fixing / bribbing of reffs  scandal .  Hell even the NFL has had bibber scandals than this

[shermanator]

If it bleeds, it leads. I think those who cover the game regularly are right to be pissed off at what's happening, but a lot of the outrage is just journalists or people who couldn't care less about the game piling on.

TSN had great coverage of Canada's Copa America run because they owned the rights and Westhead was silent through it all. He'll pop back up randomly for a negative piece and then go ambulance chase a different sport for a while.

[Stryker911]

Does anyone outside of Canada even care about this? This is a dominating headline on almost every sports site in Canada, and I honestly don't get it.

New Zealand probably has already forgotten about. I actually went to several New Zealand sites and the drone incident is already buried. All they care about now is the fact their men's rugby team lost the quarterfinal game against South Africa.

Why all these Cadian writers are calling for our own team to give back their medal and leave the tournament is ridiculous.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Trash must have transferred from his old beat as Sportsnet's designated CFL hitman.  On to fresh meat, Canadian soccer.  Madani is the Brian Stelter of Canadian sport.

[PastPros]

6 minutes ago, Stryker911 said:

Does anyone outside of Canada even care about this? This is a dominating headline on almost every sports site in Canada, and I honestly don't get it.

New Zealand probably has already forgotten about. I actually went to several New Zealand sites and the drone incident is already buried. All they care about now is the fact their men's rugby team lost the quarterfinal game against South Africa.

Why all these Cadian writers are calling for our own team to give back their medal and leave the tournament is ridiculous.

Would the Guardian be spilling ink if only Canadians cared?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/26/canada-spying-drone-scandal-tokyo-football-gold-bev-priestman

[mpg_29]

If this came out during the olympics it probably would have been buried quickly by the daily tsunami of Olympics coverage/news. But coming out ~5 days before the Olympics gave it lots of oxygen by our sports media.

[Canuckia]

2 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

 

Oh. He'll be "asked"!

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

56 minutes ago, DigzTFC said:

I think Kevin Blue's comments are unbelievably reckless and have overarching legal implications.  I've never seen a CEO come out and, without a thorough investigation, ...

How do you know how thorough the investigation was and how credible the information he received concerning what had happened with drones previously was? The problem he faced was that Bev Priestman was going to try to coach again after the first game with the blame being pinned only on two underlings. That was completely untenable. There was no way he could wait for an external investigation before dealing with that.

Edited July 26 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[RS]

26 minutes ago, shermanator said:

TSN had great coverage of Canada's Copa America run because they owned the rights and Westhead was silent through it all. He'll pop back up randomly for a negative piece and then go ambulance chase a different sport for a while.

No he wasn't. (This isn't the only one he did, either)
 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

35 minutes ago, Stryker911 said:

Does anyone outside of Canada even care about this? This is a dominating headline on almost every sports site in Canada, and I honestly don't get it.

New Zealand probably has already forgotten about. I actually went to several New Zealand sites and the drone incident is already buried. All they care about now is the fact their men's rugby team lost the quarterfinal game against South Africa.

Why all these Cadian writers are calling for our own team to give back their medal and leave the tournament is ridiculous.

It's all over the international press and even in Spain, amongst most read Olympics stories they do, it has appeared. In Britain as well, because they follow women's soccer. It is one of many big stories.

No one who understands the game really believes you can get anything useful from filming a rival practice, apart from the details already mentioned (set pieces). 

[Gian-Luca]

So Christine Sinclair has said they have never been shown drone footage, Steph Labbe says she didn’t see any while Didier Drogba laughs it off and says lots of teams do it and it’s no big deal. 

On the other hand, most in the Cdn media says heads should roll mainly because we are pure, holier than others and our shit doesn’t stink. 

[jonovision]

2 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

So Christine Sinclair has said they have never been shown drone footage, Steph Labbe says she didn’t see any while Didier Drogba laughs it off and says lots of teams do it and it’s no big deal. 

Drogba's take, for those who haven't seen it:

 

[RS]

1 minute ago, jonovision said:

Drogba's take, for those who haven't seen it:

 

Never thought I'd see Ariel Helwani interviewing Didier Drogba.

[Mattd97]

48 minutes ago, shermanator said:

If it bleeds, it leads. I think those who cover the game regularly are right to be pissed off at what's happening, but a lot of the outrage is just journalists or people who couldn't care less about the game piling on.

TSN had great coverage of Canada's Copa America run because they owned the rights and Westhead was silent through it all. He'll pop back up randomly for a negative piece and then go ambulance chase a different sport for a while.

....do you think the timing has to do with westhead or maybe the whole getting caught at the Olympics with a drone

[narduch]

2 minutes ago, Mattd97 said:

....do you think the timing has to do with westhead or maybe the whole getting caught at the Olympics with a drone

Definitely it has to do with the 2 coaches getting caught in Paris.

Westhead doesn't write that article otherwise.

 

 

[DigzTFC]

28 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

How do you know how thorough the investigation was and how credible the information he received concerning what had happened with drones previously was? The problem he faced was that Bev Priestman was going to try to coach again after the first game with the blame being pinned only on two underlings. That was completely untenable. There was no way he could wait for an external investigation before dealing with that.

He could have been completely certain of the facts, and he would still have been wrong to give that type of press conference.  Was it good for him to be totally transparent as a human being?  Yes, absolutely.  Was it good legally for the CSA? No, he hurt the CSA financially. 

Human Resource lawyers will be lining up to represent the laid off coaches and, in my opinion, Kevin Blue just made it easier for them to win based on that press conference he held. 

I've been in positions where I've had to terminate bad people and the law leans towards the protection of employees.  Blue just doesn't know what he's doing in this arena.

Put it simply, Blue admitted that drones were systemic which, if I was the lawyer of the soon to be former coaches, I would be arguing.  He just conceded the crux of the legal debate for no apparent reason other than to be transparent.  

I'm putting aside that he implicated his current men's staff, the past men's staff and past women's staff.  He may have unnecessarily put himself in a position post-investigation where he literally has no coaches and he has to pay out millions of dollars in settlements.

 

[archer21]

2 hours ago, DigzTFC said:

I think Kevin Blue's comments are unbelievably reckless and have overarching legal implications.  I've never seen a CEO come out and, without a thorough investigation, implicate his current and former staff and provide additional information than reporters were asking for.  It doesn't matter if you say "anecdotal evidence" and then say the evidence.  I simply cannot believe it.  He's substantiating the evidence by stating it in the press whether it is real or not.

He went on to say that the issue is systemic (that means the whole organization), that this issue proceeded Jesse Marsch, Bev Priestman which only leaves John Herdman.  Herdman started in 2011 with the women's team.  Drone regulations were only established in the 2010's.  "Anecdotally", he just defamed Herdman in the press without a third party investigation or even interviewing him, and then went on to say Priestman was carrying on these practices, and the inherited staff of the men's side were doing it, in at least one instance, during Copa America.

He said Jesse Marsch knew about the Copa America incident "after the fact at a minimum". Just let that sit for a second.  No one asked about Copa America.  He said it without anyone asking.  He also may have implicated himself because if he knew at the time about the Copa America incident and did nothing, other employees may have viewed that as tacit approval that the CSA didn't care.  I'm sure there isn't an internal memo that says drone are an unacceptable practice.

Unbelievable, if he ends up firing any of the women's program (which is inevitable) he will have to fire people on the men's side.  You cannot have different measuring sticks legally. I am shocked at the level of legal ineptitude on display and lack of media training.   The CSA better have a good lawyer to clean up his mess.  I'd imagine he feels pretty good about how that went too.  You think the CSA is broke now? Wait until they get through the lawyer bills.  It doesn't matter if the problem preceded him.  The tacit approval of drone usage existed in the organization and these employees would have a legal argument that no one ever corrected their behavior and it was a known practice, the CSA purchased the equipment with the known intent, and hired performance analyst with flying drones as part of the job description, and with that tacit approval, there are no grounds to fire them.  Most likely, you've got 3-6 employees your going to have to payout plus lawyer fees.

But hey, what a great guy.

Unreal.....

 

 

 

I'm not going to comment on all the legal stuff because frankly I'm not qualified in the area. The job posting looking for people with drone experience isn't really the smoking gun some make it out to be though. Teams use drones to film their own practices all the time, that would be a helpful skill whether they were spying on other teams or not.

[Mihairokov]

1 hour ago, RS said:

Never thought I'd see Ariel Helwani interviewing Didier Drogba.

One time I was at Canadian Open tennis in Montreal and the camera cut to Drogba in the stands with a mouthfull of an ice cream cone. Man has exceptional aura.

[jonovision]

9 minutes ago, Mihairokov said:

One time I was at Canadian Open tennis in Montreal and the camera cut to Drogba in the stands with a mouthfull of an ice cream cone. Man has exceptional aura.

Looks like he's lost about 10 kilos from his latter playing days as well.