Haiti, which has suffered from natural disasters, is playing in the soccer World Cup for the second time. The country ravaged by earthquakes is also plagued by corruption, which can be seen even in the football association.
Reigning European champions England beat Haiti 1–0 in the Women’s World Cup. A crushing victory was expected from England, but the tiny island nation was close to even reaching a draw.
The poor country’s team has played in the World Cup once before the current tournament, in the men’s games in 1974 in Germany. At that time, a tough group hit, in which, in addition to Haiti, Argentina, Italy and Poland played.
Haiti lost all three of their matches and the balance was a goal difference of 2–14. Both goals were completed by the Haitian football icon Emmanuel I saywhich among other things broke Italian goalkeeper Dino Zoffin A clean sheet lasting 1,142 minutes.
The current football success stems from the natural disaster that made Haiti famous. The earthquakes of 2010 destroyed almost all the apartments and hundreds of thousands of people died. Soccer stadiums were turned into refugee camps.
A boost to football “on the farm”
More than 30 of the members of the Football Association died in earthquakes. Only two of them survived, one of whom was elected president of the union in 2000 Yves Jean-Bart.
The earthquake also destroyed the training center of the Haitian football association, the Ranch. The founder of Ranchi is a former dictator of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier.
After the earthquake, Fifa and many other actors supported the country’s football association financially. Fifa launched a support campaign of up to 3 million euros to raise the sport. That money was used for Camp Nous, which was established in 2012 as a continuation of Ranchi, for example. Fifa is believed to have financed the operation of the training center with around one million euros annually.
Yves Jean-Bart was said to develop the country’s football and the training center played a big role.
However, the conditions at the training center are shocking. The former coach described the position as “despicable” for the British newspaper the Guardian in 2020.
– Ten children sleep in the same room. There are no sheets, and no clean toilets. Where did the money go? The football association got millions and didn’t even buy clean sheets, the coach said.
In November 2020, the international football association Fifa banned Jean-Bart for life. In the Fifa investigation was stated, that Jean-Bart has sexually abused young female soccer players. In addition, the foreign service of German radio Deutsche Welle reportsthat the US Department of Justice is investigating Jean-Bart for human trafficking and visa fraud.
Still, Jean-Bart received the trust of the country’s football association and continued as president.
In February of this year, the international court of appeals for sports, CAS, revoked the lifetime ban. FifPro, the umbrella organization of football’s international players’ associations issued a statementin which it stated that it was deeply disappointed by the CAS decision.
Along with natural disasters and the problems of the football association, Haiti has several social challenges, such as famine and gang activity. For example, in 2021 the country’s president Jovenel Moise was murdered. US media New York Times news that the murder was related to the fact that Moise was trying to eradicate systematic drug smuggling in the country.
– We want to unify our country, raise new winds and, as it were, forget everything that is going on, midfielder Danielle Etienne said before the start of the World Cup tournament.
The young team has a star player
The Haitian team’s average age of 22.3 years is the youngest at the Games. The star player is Melchie Dumornay i.e. Corventina. In May, him was named As the “revelation of the season” of the French league. Nowadays, he represents Lyon, which is one of the most successful clubs in Europe.
Over the years, women’s football in Haiti has been followed quite poorly. However, that has changed since the team secured the country’s first World Cup berth in almost 50 years. For example, the country’s news agency Haiti Libre has followed competitions closely.
The Haitians seemed quite disappointed with their World Cup opener, when England narrowly won. The young team was also close to scoring a few times.
The best place came from the substitute to the field Roseline Eloisaint. Only the England goalkeeper Mary Earps a classy foot save saved England from a setback.
– I am satisfied with our good performance. We lost the game by small margins. It’s a pity that we didn’t manage to finish from our places. We have to be more clinical in the next match, Dumornay said after the match.
In their second match of the group stage, Haiti will face China, who lost 0–1 to Denmark. If the team creates as good scoring opportunities as it did against England, Haiti has a chance to surprise the tougher China and Denmark.