Haiti heads to the World Cup, bringing rare unity to a country beset by crisis

(CNN) — When gangs set fire to the FIFA Goal Center in Haiti’s capital this year, it wasn’t just a key sports ground that went up in flames. It was the center of Haitian youth sports, a training ground for talent and home to the dreams held by young athletes in a country battered by violence.

Months earlier, Louicius Deedson –– who used to be one of those budding athletes –– had helped make history with the Haitian national team in Curaçao. They beat Nicaragua in the World Cup qualifier and secured Haiti’s place in the world’s biggest single-sport event for the first time in over 50 years.

The streets of Port-au-Prince came alive with euphoric fans in a brief moment of respite that punctuated the turbulence and overlapping crises that have engulfed the country.

“It’s been a long time since you see Haitian people united like this,” said Deedson, 25, who scored one of the two winning goals for Haiti in the November match. It is a remarkable achievement for the national team that had to train abroad due to the country’s violent instability.

Gangs control an estimated 80 to 90% of the capital, according to the United Nations, including areas home to some of the country’s biggest stadiums. Sylvio Cator in downtown Port-au-Prince was where the national team trained for decades, even for its last and only World Cup stint in the 70s.

But it has not been used by the team for years as armed groups have become increasingly powerful in the country, especially after the 2021 assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moise left a power vacuum.

The stadium is now used by people seeking shelter from gangs, who now control key routes to and from the capital, choking off vital supplies in the Caribbean nation grappling with a deepening hunger crisis. Fear permeates every aspect of life in parts of Haiti and the sports world is no exception.

Deedson has played at stadiums now under gang control, and laments that Haitian kids aspiring to make the national team one day can’t use those vital facilities.

The Haitian midfielder who now plays for Major League Soccer’s FC Dallas is from Port-au-Prince’s Tabarre district. The aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and armed gang attacks made daily life tough, but Deedson didn’t see the worst of it. As a young teen he moved to the United States to pursue his soccer career and an education.

“I think moving to the US was the best thing for me at the moment,” he told CNN.

The game goes on

Many of the national team players are born, raised and reside abroad in countries like France where they play for European soccer leagues. Even when representing Haiti during the World Cup qualifiers, the unrest in the country has meant they have not been able to play any home games, practice in Haitian stadiums, nor could their French coach travel to the Caribbean nation. They are instead training in Florida and New Jersey in the lead-up to the tournament.

Woodensky Pierre is one of the few players on the national team who grew up and still lives in Haiti – and the only one who currently plays in the country’s soccer league.

He hails from the impoverished Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where he began playing soccer with his father as a child, before leaving the neighborhood to live with his mother. Like many other Haitian kids he faced financial barriers to a promising soccer career.

“There was a moment where I felt like I would never make it to this point because things were very difficult, I had no support, nothing,” he told CNN over Zoom from Port-au-Prince. “I did not grow up in a rich family, my mom was a street vendor, and my father was always doing side jobs. Football was all I had.”

Even today, sports-related expenses like equipment, travel and programs are difficult to come by for families struggling to make ends meet as economic turmoil and armed violence have weighed heavily on employment opportunities for many Haitians.

Pierre eventually got a soccer scholarship that got him through school.

But his hometown of Cite Soleil remains a hotbed for armed attacks. On May 11, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) suspended operations in the area as armed clashes injured dozens and pushed hundreds to seek shelter at the medical facility.

Pierre now plays as a midfielder for Haitian soccer team Violette Athletic Club, part of the Haitian soccer league that plays on amid the country’s overlapping crises. On May 10, Pierre’s team won the final game of the national championship at the Parc Sainte-Therese stadium in Port-au-Prince’s Petionville area – one of the few areas of the capital not entirely overrun by gangs.

Wasting talent

Making it to Haiti’s final World Cup squad as an athlete playing in Haiti, Pierre hopes opportunities will open up for other young talent to make it to the national league someday.

In his country, youth sport is not only a means of empowerment for children growing up under violence it is an avenue of engagement for that vulnerable group at a time when about half of Haiti’s gangs are made up of minors, according to the UN.

It’s among the reasons Haiti’s Ministry of Youth, Sports and Civic Action wants to build more sports facilities – an ambition stunted by the unrest in many places.

“It’s killing us, whenever we see a kid with a gun,” the ministry’s communications director Louis Alex Francois told CNN. “Our prayers (are) for that unrest to stop so we can be with the youth and the kids, to offer them a better alternative, a better future.”

Pierre’s former agent, France-based Jerome Salbert, said the athlete’s background has given him the grit and resilience needed to excel in a soccer career.

“The fact that he was born in a tough neighborhood in Haiti…he developed a mentality of a warrior,” Salbert told CNN.

Salbert scouted Woodensky remotely – unable to watch him play in person because of the security-related travel restrictions, especially at Port-au-Prince’s international airport. He says that’s just one of the reasons why many Haitian soccer players are unable to sign with agents who can present them with international opportunities to push their careers forward.

“The fact that the country is (in) a humanitarian crisis, sometimes you can face a lot of instability with the players…because they are young, they don’t trust easily, sometimes they live with gangs surrounding their houses,” Salbert told CNN.

“It (was) everything for me as a young guy to be able to go to school with my friends and play soccer twice a day, every day,” said Deedson, reminiscing about his childhood on the soccer fields of Port-au-Prince’s landmark sports centers.

But today, the surge of violence presents a very different set of circumstances for sports lovers.

“I know there’s a lot of Haitian kids that are very good and they just want the chance to show themselves,” Deedson said. “There’s a lot of talent there that’s wasting right now.”

His own childhood home in the Port-au-Prince area was partially burned down in a gang attack last year. It was the house his parents worked hard to build and raise him and his sister. Other parts of his family in Haiti have had to flee gang attacks.

“It’s not just my family, it’s everyone in Haiti,” Deedson said. Even from Texas – he’s plugged into what’s happening back in the Caribbean nation, praying for things to turn around.

He hopes Haiti’s historic World Cup participation can somewhat help do that – in any way.

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