Kevin Blue, the head of Canada Soccer, said he is investigating a potential 'systemic ethical shortcoming' in the organization over accusations of spying. 'There are allegations of this going back several years,' he said.Bruna Rico/The Canadian Press
When Kevin Blue was hired to run Canada Soccer five months ago, the idea was a fresh, reassuring face to front an organization notorious for its dysfunction.
That face was not looking so fresh on Friday. In a mid-afternoon Zoom call, Blue looked like a guy who’d been hit over the head with a rubber mallet right before someone turned on the camera and said, “Go.”
Over the course of 30 shambolic minutes, Blue admitted that he runs a rogue sports organization. It now seems that getting advantage by whatever means necessary wasn’t part of the Canadian soccer culture. It was the culture.
“There are allegations of this going back several years,” Blue said. “Far preceding our current coach on the men’s side, and preceding our coach on the women’s side.”
They just cheated at the Olympics. They may have cheated at the previous Olympics and at the Copa America.
It is very possible that the only person in the upper echelons at Canada Soccer who wasn’t in on the cheating was Kevin Blue. He’s Canadian soccer’s Don Corleone and he doesn’t even know it.
Blue could have gone a lot of ways with this – anger, bathos, begging for his job. Instead, he chose the MBA route – address stakeholders only and hope everybody else’s WiFi cuts out.
Among the highlights was this gem: “In my four months in the sport, one of the biggest take-aways I have is that to the extent to which it’s part of the culture globally, um, to employ tactics that might be in the ethical grey area in order to gain an edge. In four months, I’ve seen a lot of this.”
It takes a real cheek to use your apology media conference as an opportunity to explain why you shouldn’t have to apologize.
Things got worse from there. Blue personally vouched for the women’s team players in Paris.
“I can tell you that this group of players at the Olympics now has not engaged in any unethical behaviour.”
Yes, but more than a dozen of the ones here now were at the past Olympics in Tokyo. There have been reports that Canada was spying at the Games in Japan.
Blue was very careful in his response – he’s only talking about these Games. The Games where Mr. Video was arrested while holding the practice footage that would presumably have been used for tactical purposes. The only people who saw it were the French authorities.
With that in mind, why vouch for anyone?
Because whenever the warning light goes on in Canada, you should first cover your own rear flank before you attempt to cover anyone else’s.
The overarching theme of Blue’s news conference wasn’t remorse or a promise to get to the bottom of things. It was to bang home that while this is all terrible, everyone else does it and a lot of this happened before he got here.
For two days now, the only really sincere thing about any statements made on this is the part where everyone gets to keep their jobs. They should not.
In order to restore any sort of confidence in a pivotal Canadian sporting resource, everybody must go. The coaching staff of both teams should be burned to the ground. Then the fire should be encouraged to spread upward.
It’s not just about who knew. It’s also about who didn’t. There is no point in oversight if no one is ultimately responsible for the overseeing.
Because no one in Canada has enough dignity to take full accountability, FIFA may have to do it for them. That, rather than Canada Soccer’s promised inquiry, is the investigation that matters.
In the usual course of things, you would not expect the most powerful sports body in the world to take much interest in the tawdry goings-on in a second-tier soccer country.
But Canada is going to be a co-host of the World Cup in less than two years. Whatever rot there is in the soccer set-up must be cut out beforehand. There can’t be the slightest chance of any whammies during FIFA’s big party. Not because it offends the integrity of the game, but because it might make Visa and Coca-Cola feel weird.
Canadian Olympic Committee removes women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman amid spying scandal
Until the boom falls, the lesser hits will keep on coming.
On Blue’s call, an Irish reporter asked him if his organization had spied on Ireland during last year’s World Cup. Blue didn’t know.
A reporter from New Zealand asked him if he intended to surrender the three points Canada earned in its opening win against New Zealand. Blue talked around it.
But it was Scott Russell, CBC’s main anchor, who really let him have it.
“Listen, as you can appreciate, this situation has cast a shadow over the entire Canadian Olympic team on the day of the opening ceremony. It has totally distracted Canadians back home. This has become the only story about Canadian athletes at Paris 2024, so far. I’m wondering, in light of all this, have you considered withdrawing the team? The integrity of the tournament has obviously been compromised,” Russell said.
Blue began to reel in his chair after that tongue lashing. Swaying side to side and breathing hard. You felt sorry for the guy. What’s he supposed to say?
Well, it probably wasn’t, “I have not considered withdrawal of the team, primarily because we have addressed the situation swiftly and significantly,” which is what he did say.
Russell’s right. The honourable thing would be for Canada to stand down. That’s the only gesture that would signal genuine contrition.
In a story that gets worse every time anyone in charge talks about it, this was the nadir thus far. Before a Games, every country with the luxury to do so works out all the performance scenarios available to them, from very bad to very good.
What do you call the scenario where you get on Zoom a couple of hours before the biggest show in the world so that Canada’s Olympic Dad, Scott Russell, can tell you that you just ruined the Olympics?