Rich meets President of Haitian Soccer Federation

Many thanks to all who prayed for me this weekend! In spite of many obstacles, the training was completed, and in the process we learned many things.

On Saturday there was a full schedule of training in the morning. I arrived at the training center about 3 PM after a busy morning of preparing food, buying water and ice, and gathering all the things we would need to print the certificates to give the coaches. When I arrived at 3 PM Lucasse grabbed my hand and said we needed to go into the conference room right away. It turned out that the President of the Haitian Soccer Federation (FHF), Dr. Yves Jean-Bart, was on campus and had agreed to speak to our coaches! Here I was in dirty shorts and hadn’t even had time to shave and I found myself sitting next to the President of the FHF. Thankfully Dr. Jean-Bart was dressed in casual clothes. Nevertheless, they videotaped the presentation with me sitting right next to him. Every once in a while he would tap me on the leg to add emphasis to what he was saying.



Although this was not the first time I had met Dr. Jean-Bart, it was my first time sitting next to him and hearing him talk about his personal life and his public life as head of Haiti’s Soccer Federation.

He spoke for about 30 minutes about the challenges the FHF faces in general. Unlike most countries where the national soccer federation makes millions from television contracts and club fees, in Haiti these sources of revenue are not very developed. He did say that the FHF was trying to create a television channel that would broadcast professional and international games and seek to get advertising income.

Dr. Jean-Bart also spoke about his life as a child, including how he would steal sugar cane from the back of big carts when they passed by his house, and then resell it to local vendors. He said that soccer and school saved him from a life of delinquency.
He said that the FHF wanted to develop Futsal in Haiti at every school and make it into the national sport since it closely resembles the “Ti Kant” (little goals) type of soccer played in the streets of every town and city. He called the coaches we trained “pioneers” and encouraged them to go out and spread the sport throughout Haiti.

After this exciting meeting it was time to play the championship match of the Futsal tournament that went on during the training. (Please see a description of this game below). Then it was back to the mundane task of feeding the coaches, figuring out the money to give each participant for transportation and printing out the certificates.

We left the dinner of Oatmeal and bread for the coaches and then headed back home arriving shortly before 10 PM (which is really late for Haiti!)

So thanks for all your prayers!