Didier Deschamps believes a French training session may have been spied on by a drone that flew over their base in Ribeirao Preto earlier this week.
The France coach revealed at a media conference on Saturday that FIFA are investigating the incident, which left players bemused as they trained at Botafogo's Santa Cruz stadium.
Suspicion: France briefly halted a session to point at a camera-armed, unmanned aircraft
The squad are thought to have briefly halted a session to point at what Deschamps clearly fears was a camera-armed, unmanned aircraft.
Deschamps lodged a complaint with FIFA ahead of Sunday's Group E clash against Honduras, with the coach seemingly concerned about the possibility that his tactics had been discovered.
'Apparently, drones are used more and more,' he said. 'It's not up to me, FIFA handle this and have been carrying out an inquiry. We don't want any intrusion into our privacy but it's very hard to fight this these days.'
A Honduran reporter defended the integrity of his national team. 'It wasn't us!' he declared.
'No?' replied Deschamps with more than a little suspicion. 'I didn't do anything special anyway that day.'
Training day: France prepare for their World Cup opener against Honduras
Even by FIFA's standards that will be a tricky inquiry.
One imagines, also, that communications chiefs at the world governing body might have a quiet word with Deschamps, who refused to use headphones provided to listen to questions posed to him in any language other than French.
This proved problematic when he was questioned in English about problems with player cliques at previous tournaments, such as the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and Euro 2012.
In fairness to the 1998 World Cup-winning captain, he has a decent command of English. But he claimed: 'I haven't understood everything there, I didn't use my earphones. I heard South Africa, and you shouldn't mention South Africa. We are now four years on. This is a different environment.
'Clique is a rather technical word for me. But we have to live life in common. What is important is that we're united with a common objective.'
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