OPINION: Olympic cheaters forfeit the right to call themselves ‘Team Canada’

Canada’s women’s soccer team is enjoying a strange outpouring of national support after overcoming an entirely self-inflicted deficit.

The team’s on-field performance has been nothing short of spectacular, but I find it disconcerting to see so many people across Canada celebrating a team of proven cheaters.

The team needed to perform spectacularly in order to stay alive in the tournament after finding themselves hit with a six-point penalty. That’s pretty lenient considering a member of the team’s staff was caught using a drone to spy on practices by the New Zealand team ahead of their match, which Canada won 2-1. The team later beat Columbia 1-0 to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal.

It’s an impressive feat, sure enough, but is a cheating team still worthy of public support, or even worthy of calling itself “Team Canada”?

As far as I’m concerned, when you start cheating you stop representing Canada. This team should probably be competing as the “Olympic Athletes of Canada,” in the same way the Russian teams were previously penalized for their own nation’s illicit tactics.

The obvious argument on the other side is that the players themselves claim they weren’t directly involved in any cheating, and shouldn’t be penalized for the actions of their potentially rogue drone pilot.

That doesn’t hold water for two reasons:

First, the coaches and staff are as much a part of the team as the players, and even though there’s likely very little important data to be gleaned from an overhead view of another team’s training, there can be no doubt that the ultimate goal was to feed important information to the players for an unfair leg up. The players can claim ignorance if they want, but they win, lose – and in this case cheat – as a team.

Second, flying a spy drone over another team’s practice does not seem like the action of a novice cheater putting a toe over the line for the first time. From where I’m sitting, it seems like the actions of a confident, experienced rule-breaker who’s been at it for so long that they’ve started to feel untouchable.

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The 2024 Canadian Women’s soccer team is pictured in a screen grab from Canada Soccer. (Supplied/Canada Soccer)

As a result, we’re forced to wonder how much other cheating this team has done, and may still be doing.

I don’t care too much about Olympic soccer in general, but I care about the people who represent Canada because when you pull on that jersey, you’re representing every single Canadian. That includes you and me, and together we should demand better representation.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask that only decent, honourable people represent us on the world stage. If you’re going to wear “Team Canada” on your chest when you play sports, then I’m going to hold you to a very high standard of sportsmanship. This soccer team does not meet that standard.

This team has also failed to live up to the Olympic Oath, which is taken by athletes and coaches alike, and reads (in part): “We promise to take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules and in the spirit of fair play, inclusion and equality. Together we stand in solidarity and commit ourselves to sport without doping, without cheating, without any form of discrimination.”

It’s utterly shameless that this team continues to represent our country after such flagrant cheating, and it’s baffling to see Canadians cheering them on instead of demanding this team drop out in disgrace.