April 26 – While Haiti’s women’s national team will compete at the World Cup in Australia/New Zealand this summer and the men’s team will play at the 2023 Gold Cup in the US, Haitian clubs will not compete in Concacaf’s club competitions in the 2023/24 season.
Haiti’s football federation is currently under the control of a normalisation committee though progress has been slow in a country that is politically unstable and whose former president Yves Jean-Bart was banned for multiple sexual offences but then released back into the football world when he won an appeal at CAS.
The decision to stop Haitian clubs entering was taken by the Concacaf Council on the basis that there has been no club competition in the country.
Concacaf said: “This unfortunate decision had to be taken in view that the Haitian league did not commence any football activities in 2022 and has not yet resumed play, therefore, no teams have been able to qualify (in addition to other club licensing requirements).”
Haiti’s Violette AC did compete in this season’s Champions League, beating Austin in the Round of 16 but losing to Club Leon in the quarter finals.
Haiti had slots for two clubs in the Caribbean Cup that starts in August. Those places will now be given to clubs from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica who have each been awarded an addition slot in the competition based on the performance of clubs in the past five editions of the competition.
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