Australian newspaper use helicopter to spy on Lionesses ahead of semi final

An Australian newspaper used a helicopter to spy on England's Lionesses training before their World Cup semi-final against Australia.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney sent up the aircraft to capture images from the Lionesses’ behind-closed-doors session at their training base as they finalised plans for the semi-final against the co-hosts on Wednesday.

Alongside the headline “Eleven Poms against a nation: Welcome to the jungle, Lionesses”, the pictures show the head coach, Sarina Wiegman, and her staff training.

The newspaper wrote: “If England’s Lionesses thought they would happily fly into the World Cup semi‑final under the radar they were in for a rude shock. We’ve sent the chopper up to see how the old enemy are preparing … Welcome to the jungle, Lionesses, we’ve got fun and games.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

It continued: “As the Matildas held their final training session behind closed doors at Kogarah, about 100km north at Central Coast Stadium in Gosford the England team attempted to finalise their preparations without any prying eyes.

They then referenced when Australian opener David Warner and his teammates were unhappy when the ball was changed mid-innings during England’s victory in the fifth Ashes Test last month, writing:

“It might not be in the spirit of football, but after last month’s men’s Ashes cricket series we will let the moral arbiters England pass judgment on what is and isn’t acceptable in the world of sport.”

Australia and England have a longstanding sporting rivalry but so far have behaved themselves ahead of the big match, which will see one team go to the final and play Spain, who won their own semi-final game against Sweden.

The Football Association has declined to comment on the incident.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.