Ten Players Denied Visas To US For CONCACAF Club Tournament

Ten players with Jamaican side Mount Pleasant have failed to obtain US entry visas for the club’s CONCACAF Champions Cup clash against Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday, club officials have confirmed. Mount Pleasant traveled to Los Angeles on Sunday with an 18-man squad which included five academy players after the team’s roster was decimated by visa problems. Seven members of the Mount Pleasant squad are Haitian nationals, and the issue brings into sharp focus one of the concerns surrounding this year’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

Haiti is one of 19 countries targeted by US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with Haitian nationals’ entry to the US suspended under a presidential order issued last June.

Although athletes taking part in major sporting events such as the World Cup and Olympics are exempt from the ban, it was not clear if CONCACAF’s regional club tournament was included amongst those exceptions.

Mount Pleasant’s sporting director Paul Christie said the visa stumbling block would leave Mount Pleasant at a competitive disadvantage as they prepare to face the 2024 MLS Cup champions this week. 

“We dont want to just show up for the game, we want to be able to compete, but we are not being given the opportunity to be at our best,” Christie told the Jamaica Observer.

Christie said Mount Pleasant “had not been given the opportunity to field our best starting 11.”

US media reports have said CONCACAF, the regional body for football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, had been attempting to resolve the issues.

A CONCACAF spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It means Mount Pleasant head coach Theodore Whitmore will need to field a makeshift line-up on Wednesday drawn from a team that includes five members of Jamaica’s under-20 team.

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