Former Chelsea player Didier Drogba shrugs off ‘Drone-gate’: ‘It happens’

Didier Drogba, a former footballer who rose to fame with English club Chelsea and represented Ivory Coast at three World Cups, had a different take when asked about the “Drone-gate” story currently surrounding Canada’s women’s football team at the Paris Olympics.

“Ah, it happens,” Drogba said with a laugh when asked by Ariel Helwani of CBC Olympics in Paris if it was common for teams to use drones or other methods to peek into opponents’ training sessions. “It happens a few times.”

The story of a member of the Canadian team coaching staff being caught using a drone during two practices in New Zealand has been called a cheating scandal, a fiasco and an Olympic embarrassment. The initial reaction to the news was to send home analyst Joseph Lombardi and assistant coach Jasmine Mander from Canada Soccer. Later, head coach Bev Priestman was also suspended and sent home, after it emerged that this was not the first time Priestman’s staff had employed the tactic.

Drogba’s stance was decidedly different, offering a big laugh and a shrug when Helwani asked him how important it was.

“I mean, it doesn’t really impact the outcome of the game,” said Drogba, 46, who was an Olympic torchbearer for the Games. “It affects certain situations in the game, I think. But the end result, when you lose, you know what you prepared for.

“You know how to win, you know how to play and how to win. And to me, I mean, they just got them. That’s it.”

Drogba has played in multiple Africa Cup of Nations tournaments, leading his team to the final twice, and has played in three World Cups (2006, 2010, 2014). He has scored 100 goals for Chelsea in the Premier League and also played parts of two seasons (2015–16) with Montreal in Major League Soccer.

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