Gift Article
One after another, they collapsed onto the field, touching their foreheads to the grass, lifting their arms in prayer.
The moment that Haiti qualified for its first Women’s World Cup should have been a symbol of the bright future for women’s soccer across the globe: the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere fighting its way to the heights of the sport, with an electric, homegrown teenage star, Melchie Dumornay, scoring both of her country’s goals.
But there was a shadow over the game, and over Haitian soccer.
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The program’s architect, former federation president Yves Jean-Bart, had for years been embroiled in a harrowing abuse scandal, accused of sexually assaulting underage players and overseeing a national training center that allegedly became a den of systematized abuse by other officials.