Colombia national team head coach Nestor Lorenzo has accused Bolivia of spying on his side ahead of their 2026 World Cup qualifying match on Thursday at Municipal Stadium El Alto.
He said the Colombian Football Federation will be filing a formal complaint on the matter and submitting photographic evidence to make the case.
“It is unfortunate that they send you to spy and all that,” Lorenzo said at a news conference Wednesday. “I don’t know where it came from or who it was, but we identified him, we have photos and we will file a complaint about the case.
“Of course, one wants to train with the discretion that is deserved, and what happened was a breach of the team’s privacy. We have photographs of the entire person, we will see how we proceed in the next few hours.”
Nestor Lorenzo accused Bolivia of spying in his pre-match news conference. FERNANDO CARTAGENA/AFP via Getty Images
It has not been confirmed who the individual was or whether he was a member of Bolivia’s staff. ESPN has approached the Bolivian federation for comment on Lorenzo’s accusations.
Bolivian national team head coach Oscar Villegas claimed earlier in the week that the Bolivian press were helping Colombia prepare for the match by sharing information.
“It would be nice to have the information that Colombia has on Bolivia,” said Villegas. “Reporters know how [Bolivia] trained, who came on for who, everything that occurred during the training session that was obviously a closed-door session. We’d like to have information on what Colombia is going to do, but we have something probable. We’ll see in the coming days.”
The accusations from Colombia come just months after it was revealed that Canada Soccer utilized drones to spy on several opponents across multiple competitions. The New Zealand women’s soccer team first reported suspicious drone activity to the French police ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, before authorities traced the activity to Canada Soccer staff member Joseph Lombardi.
FIFA subsequently issued Canada Soccer a $313,000 fine, while also deducting six points from the squad at the Olympic games. The incident at the Olympics unearthed what the federation’s chief executive called a “systemic culture” within Canada Soccer.
Colombia and Bolivia have faced each other 12 times since 2003, with Los Cafeteros holding the edge with a 8-1-3 (W-L-D) record. Colombia currently sits in second place on the Conmebol World Cup qualifying standings, while Bolivia struggles in eighth.
