involvement in the scandal<\/a>, where staff from the Canadian team used drones to spy on New Zealand’s training sessions. <\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to have signed with the Wellington Phoenix,\u201d Priestman said. \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic club with big ambitions, world-class facilities and a phenomenal fan base. I can\u2019t wait to get to work, connect with everyone in the building and get to know our amazing fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing back to New Zealand and seeing the Phoenix week in week out as the only professional women\u2019s team has been amazing. We have a responsibility now to fly the flag for this country and try to do something special.” <\/p>\n
As coach for Canada, Priestman guided the team to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and a bronze at the Rio games in 2016. <\/p>\n
Phoenix Chairman Rob Morrison said: \u201cBev is a world-class coach and a top person, and I have no doubt she will bring her winning mentality to the Wellington Phoenix. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a step up in an exciting era for the Phoenix women\u2019s team. Along with our significant ongoing investment in the women\u2019s academy programme, we have doubled our investment in the women\u2019s first team, and this has resulted in us being able to recruit some great international players.”<\/p>\n
Morrison said he understood Priestman’s background would generate some interest. \u201cWe all know she\u2019s had a period of time away from the game, but we understand the circumstances and we\u2019re really comfortable with this appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBev can\u2019t wait to get started, and we\u2019re really happy that she\u2019s going to be coaching the Phoenix.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australian Professional Leagues executive chairman Stephen Conroy said Priestman’s “experience and expertise will be a huge boost for the up-and-coming squad at the Phoenix”.<\/p>\n
Priestman headed up coach development in Wellington 16 years ago before moving on to be New Zealand Football\u2019s director of football development. <\/p>\n
She said she hoped the team could “capture the imagination” of New Zealand’s sporting public. <\/p>\n
\u201cSport has the ability to connect a country, not just in what you do, but more importantly, how you do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a hunger and a desire there because we know we want to achieve a first for this club, and to do that is going to take something special.”<\/p>\n
The Phoenix women’s team finished ninth in the Ninja A-League Women last season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bev Priestman \u2014 the former Canadian women’s football coach sent home from the Paris Olympics over a drone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,29169,85,25904],"class_list":{"0":"post-31086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-wellington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}