http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/6919408?MSNHPHMA
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Most of Haiti's under-17 national soccer team apparently deserted the team during a stopover in New York, hours before a planned trip to South Korea to prepare for the upcoming U17 World Cup, officials said Wednesday.
Thirteen of the team's 18 players - all under 17 - went missing from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and their whereabouts were not immediately known, Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, told The Associated Press.
"We don't know exactly where they are, but we're making calls to people (in the Haitian community) to try and get them back," Augustin said in a telephone interview.
He said he didn't know if U.S. authorities were helping to find the players, who arrived from Haiti on Tuesday and were scheduled to depart early Wednesday for Seoul, South Korea, to play in a friendly tournament ahead of the U17 World Cup in August.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, Shaila B. Manyam, said embassy officials were looking into the matter.
Augustin said authorities believe adults may be involved in the players' desertion and warned they could face criminal charges unless they turn over the minors.
"It seems that some adults may have been involved. If so, they are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Augustin, who declined to give further details.
Speaking to a Haitian Creole-language radio station in New York, the president of the Haitian Football Federation, Yves Jean-Bart, warned the youngsters that they were hurting their futures and threatened to involve U.S. authorities "unless these players reinstate themselves as soon as possible."
Jean-Bart gave no indication why the players would abandon the team. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and thousands of Haitians leave the country each year to escape miserable living conditions, violence and political instability.
The apparent desertions dealt a major blow to Haitian soccer, which has been experiencing a resurgence of late after years of dismal performances. The U17s qualified for the biennial World Cup for the first time in the Caribbean nation's history earlier this year, while the men's team won the Caribbean Cup for the first time in January.
LOOOOOOOOOL
i think this has happened before with the cuban baseball team
Comment