Bev Priestman, who lost her job as Canada coach in the wake of the Paris Olympic drone-spying scandal, has been named coach of Wellington Phoenix FC women’s team in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The two-year appointment coincides with the expiration of Priestman’s one-year FIFA ban arising from the drone incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really pleased to be able to welcome Bev back to football,\u201d Wellington chairman Rob Morrison said. “We 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
Wellington finished ninth in Australia’s 12-team A-League last season at 7-13-3.<\/p>\n
“Bev is a world-class coach and a top person, and I have no doubt she will bring her winning mentality to the Wellington Phoenix,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n
Priestman, assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joey Lombardi were all handed one-year suspensions by FIFA in the wake of New Zealand’s Olympic Committee filing a complaint with the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit, alleging drones were flown over a pair of pre-tournament practice sessions. All three are no longer with Canada Soccer.<\/p>\n
The 39-year-old Priestman 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thrilled to have signed with the Wellington Phoenix,\u201d said Priestman. \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
Priestman spent five years with Canada Soccer in a variety of coaching roles before returning in June 2018 to her native England, where she served as coach of England\u2019s women\u2019s under-18 side and assistant coach with the senior English women.<\/p>\n
Priestman succeeded Kenneth Heiner-Moller as Canada women’s coach in November 2020 and was a nominee for FIFA Women’s Best Coach in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n
In her first go-round with Canada Soccer, Priestman served as director of its developmental EXCEL program and had stints as coach of the under-15, under-17 and under-20 women’s sides. She was also an assistant coach to John Herdman while he was in charge of the women’s team.<\/p>\n
Before that, she spent 4 1\/2 years with New Zealand Football, serving as head of football development before leaving in June 2013 to join Herdman in Canada.<\/p>\n
Stephen Conroy, executive chairman of the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), welcomed Priestman’s appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBev is a world-renowned national team head coach and Olympic champion, and her experience and expertise will be a huge boost for the up-and-coming squad at the Phoenix.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bev Priestman, who lost her job as Canada coach in the wake of the Paris Olympic drone-spying scandal,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-32987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}