United States football journalist Meg Linehan, from the Athletic, discussed the drone incident on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast on Thursday, before Canada’s 2-0 win over New Zealand in their opening match of the women’s Olympic football tournament:

“It is just a wild story. Canada are defending gold medallists from Tokyo. New Zealand are ranked 28th in the world, so just from that point of view it hasn’t really made sense.

“[Canada’s] Beverly Priestman has had to stand up and say, first of all, ‘I am accountable for everyone in this programme as head coach’, but I think there are going to be questions about what she knew and how much she knew.

“So far she has said ‘I did not know the details of this, I did not know what was happening’.

“Canada’s Olympic Committee got on Zoom on Wednesday night to say they were pretty satisfied with what has happened after she removed herself from the first game.

“But this goes beyond anything we have ever seen before in the women’s game.”

Canada Soccer – the country’s football federation – has subsequently removed English-born Priestman, 38, from her role as head coach of the women’s football team after “additional information” came to light over previous drone use against opponents.