JA OFFERS FOOTBALL FRIENDLIES, CONCERTS TO APPEASE HAITI
(Jamaica Observer) -
SPORTS minister Olivia 'Babsy' Grange has offered to arrange friendly football matches and concerts in Jamaica and Haiti to ease tensions between the two countries.
Grange made the offer to a visiting Haitian delegation yesterday with Haitian officials after their football team was sent home from the Under-17 CONCACAF Championships being held in Montego Bay, St James, after several players were found to be suffering from malaria.
The foreign ministry said in a statement today, that the meeting concluded that there had been "much misrepresentation" of the treatment of the players.
“However, I believe the experience at the hospital; the delays in getting their results and the fact that they didn’t get to play frustrated and disappointed the players,” said foreign minister Kenneth Baugh, who stressed that medical staff had followed correct protocol.
In response to allegations that the players were physically detained by armed guards and forcibly quarantined at the hospital, the Haitian delegation was told that the footballers broke quarantine; some discharged themselves from hospital, while one refused to be tested.
Grange denied claims that players were forcibly restrained, saying that the situation worsened only when they began shouting and banging on the table.
"The Haitian delegation was assured that the primary decision to advise the Haitian CONCACAF team to withdraw from the competition was the fact that with 14 members of the delegation exhibiting signs of malaise (illness), they could not field a team," said the statement.
The Haitians however held maintained the view that there were still sufficient team members to play.
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