A short history of spying in sport, from deep sea dives to high flying drones

It's a new first for the Olympic Games, but not one the Canadian women's football team will be allowed to forget for a while.

It's proven a shameless and scandalous own goal, and the Canadians are now paying the highest sporting price for spying on the Football Ferns at the Olympics.

The coach has been sent home in disgrace, the team has been docked six vital points and the fine is in excess of $350,000.

Their reputation is in tatters. They are golden girls no more. The global contenders are now cheating pretenders, who have dragged the beautiful game into murky scandal and shame.

It's big news in Paris, as questions swirl about who knew what and when.

"Up until now, all the scandals have involved performance enhancing drugs," says RNZ sports journalist Jamie Wall. "In terms of spying, this is a new one for the Olympics."

Today on The Detail he runs through the background and the timeline, and we look at other sport spying scandals that made headlines.

Here's how this one started:

The Canadian women's team - the defending Olympic champs - were caught spying on New Zealand ahead of their opening game.

A drone, operated by a Canadian official, was flown over the Kiwis' training session. When confronted, Canada went from attack to defence and damage control.

"It's sort of turned into how a political scandal would play out," said Wall. "First off you are going to blame it on a junior staffer, oh then it turns out a few other people knew about it, then it turns out the head coach not only knew about it, but has probably done it before and told these people to do it."

That head coach is Bev Priestman, who is married to a Kiwi and used to live in New Zealand, and is a previous winner of the IFFHS Women's World Best National Coach award.

She's now been sent home from the Games in disgrace, and suspended by FIFA for a year.

This week, she apologised profusely to her players and the nation. So can she recover from this, or is it all over?

"I think it will be a long road back for her to recover from this," Wall says.

"I'm pretty shocked about it myself."

Wall interviewed her when she was here for the women's FIFA world cup and says like most people in sport, she's really nice.

One of the puzzling things about the spying escapade is why the defending champions would pick on New Zealand.

"The Canadian women's football team is a strong side, they are a very good team, they were probably hoping to make the knock outs and challenge for a medal," says Wall…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details