Bev Priestman (R), new head coach for the Wellington Phoenix women’s football team, attends a press conference on her new appointment with Wellington Phoenix’s director of football Shaun Gill in Upper Hutt near Wellington on Wednesday.YUXIN LIU/AFP/Getty Images
Bev Priestman, the former head coach of Canada’s women’s national soccer team – who was banned by FIFA for her role in a drone spying scandal at the Paris Olympics – has been hired as head coach of New Zealand’s only professional women’s team.
Priestman made her return to soccer this week after her one-year ban. The ban expired the day before New Zealand’s Wellington Phoenix announced Priestman would be the new coach of their women’s squad.
Priestman will be returning to football to work in the country the Canadians were caught spying on. She has signed a two-year contract with the club.
Priestman, who was raised in Consett, in Northern England, was visibly emotional as she discussed her suspension and what it meant to be returning to the sport.
“I didn’t feel safe,” Priestman said of living in Canada after the Olympics. “That’s being brutally honest. It was very difficult for my family, and I have to live with that.
“Obviously it was an absolute media frenzy. You’ve got people knocking at your door and everything, and I’ve got a little boy. Without going into too much detail, it was very difficult. We knew we had to get out of that country.”
Investigation: Canada Soccer’s culture problem
Priestman was named Canada women’s coach in October, 2020, and was a nominee for FIFA Women’s Best Coach in 2021 – the year Canada won gold at the Toyko Olympics – and in 2022.
The drone-spying scandal shook the national soccer federation and tarnished the reputation of a women’s program that had been a jewel in Canadian sport – winning three Olympic medals in 10 years, and produced Christine Sinclair, the world’s all-time leading scorer in international soccer.
A Globe and Mail investigation published last year found multiple problems at Canada Soccer with the women’s program, including a toxic work environment that prized winning at all costs. Spying on opponents was tolerated, The Globe found, and analysts who didn’t want to spy ended up leaving the organization.
Priestman has coached in New Zealand before
As a child in 1998, she attended training sessions in Consett, England run by John Herdman, who would eventually become coach of the Canadian women’s team. In 2009, she joined Herdman when he was head coach of the women’s team in New Zealand. And she joined him again in Canada as a technical assistant in 2013 after he became head coach of the Canadian women.
In 2018, Priestman was named assistant coach of England’s women’s national team. In October, 2020, at age 34, Priestman became the new coach of Canada’s senior women’s team.
The new gig marks a step down for her.
Wellington finished ninth in Australia’s 12-team A-League last season. The country’s top talent is being drained by England’s Women’s Super League, the U.S. National Women’s Soccer League, the U.S. second tier and Canada’s new professional league, the Northern Super League, Beau Busch, chief executive of players union Professional Footballers Australia recently told SBS News.
Priestman, now 39, has ties to the Wellington club through her wife Emma Humphries, a former New Zealand international who is the club’s academy director. Priestman also headed up coach development in Wellington some 16 years ago.
“We’re really pleased to be able to welcome Bev back to football,” Wellington chairman Rob Morrison said this week. “We all know she’s had a period of time away from the game, but we understand the circumstances and we’re really comfortable with this appointment.”
Canada Soccer declined a request for comment about Priestman’s new job.
Priestman said she had learned from her ban, and her experience with Canada, and would be a better coach for it.
“There’s certain values that I hold and unfortunately, you know, things around me have clouded my judgement,” Priestman said.
“So for me personally, I just want to get back to… I love working with people. I love getting the best out of people. I love being on a football pitch.”