U.S. grants visa to Haitian soccer player to join team for World Cup

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

The U.S. gov­ern­ment has giv­en a visa to Wood­en­sky Pierre, the on­ly mem­ber of Haiti’s na­tion­al soc­cer team who lives in the Caribbean coun­try, to trav­el and par­tic­i­pate in the World Cup, an of­fi­cial said Tues­day.

The­cieux Jean­ty, Haiti’s soc­cer fed­er­a­tion spokesper­son, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that Pierre is sched­uled to trav­el to Flori­da on Tues­day.

“It was a great mo­ment for him, a mo­ment of hap­pi­ness,” he said.

Team­mates ar­rived in Flori­da last week to start prepar­ing for the World Cup. It is the sec­ond time that Haiti has qual­i­fied. The last time it ap­peared on soc­cer’s biggest stage was more than half a cen­tu­ry ago.

Pierre had been train­ing with lo­cal play­ers in an up­scale area of Port-au-Prince as he await­ed the visa. The team’s sta­di­um in Haiti’s cap­i­tal was con­sid­ered too dan­ger­ous, so Haiti was forced to play its “home” World Cup qual­i­fiers in Cu­raçao.

Pierre is from Cite Soleil, a sea­side neigh­bour­hood that has long strug­gled with hunger and gang vi­o­lence.

Haiti will play World Cup warmup match­es against New Zealand on Tues­day and Pe­ru on Fri­day.

Haiti opens World Cup play on June 13 in Foxbor­ough, Mass­a­chu­setts, against Scot­land, then plays five-time cham­pi­on Brazil on June 19 in Philadel­phia and Mo­roc­co on June 24 in At­lanta. —SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co (AP)