CONCACAF has cleared Canada coach Jesse Marsch of any wrongdoing but fined Canada Soccer for incidents at Canada's opening Gold Cup game last week in Vancouver.
Marsch missed the first two games of the tournament, serving a ban arising from being shown a red card in March at the CONCACAF Nations League third-place match. He watched Canada's 6-0 win over No. 75 Honduras on June 17 with other team officials from a suite in Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium.
After the game, CONCACAF announced its Disciplinary Committee had initiated disciplinary proceedings into Marsch and Canada Soccer to see if they had "disregarded regulations applicable to suspended match officials and used offensive language toward CONCACAF match officials."
Late Monday, CONCACAF handed down its ruling.
The Disciplinary Committee fined Canada Soccer an undisclosed amount "for breaching security protocols for accredited delegation officials and for failing to comply with anti-doping procedures by not providing the required representative for the halftime doping control draw."
"Additionally, the Disciplinary Committee found no clear evidence that Jesse Marsch disregarded the competition’s rules regarding suspended match officials, therefore, he has been cleared of any wrongdoing," CONCACAF added.
Marsch had sounded optimistic on the topic earlier Monday.
"The dialogue has been positive," he said of CONCACAF. "And I think that more than anything, this has been a misunderstanding in some ways. I think we're all ready to move forward in a positive way."
In its ruling, CONCACAF also threw out an olive branch to Canada Soccer saying it "recognizes the CSA’s (Canada Soccer Association's) constructive engagement in the Disciplinary Committee’s investigation."
The two fines involved minor infractions.
The accreditation issue arose when a Canada Soccer staffer took ill and had to be replaced at the match. Their replacement's credential did not pass muster when checked after the game.
Canada Soccer had already apologized for the error.
The doping issue concerned the timing of a Canadian official at the mid-game draw to decide which players would be drug-tested. Due to a misunderstanding, the Canadian representative was on hand for the draw itself, which went ahead as scheduled, but not for an earlier gathering (as had been the procedure at last summer's Copa America).
Canada, ranked 30th in the world, faces No. 81 El Salvador in its final Group B game Tuesday in Houston.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2025.
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
