Foreign soccer players leave teams, likely looking to defect

Published Friday, June 15, 2007

HOUSTON (AP) - Two players on Cuba’s national soccer team didn’t show up for a game in Texas, while authorities tracked down 13 young Haitian players who disappeared from a New York airport.

Cuban players Osvaldo Alonso and Lester More skipped a first-round game Wednesday night as Cuba faced Honduras in the CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer tournament.

After Cuba was eliminated with a 5-0 loss to Honduras, Cuban Coach Raul Gonzalez declined to say whether the two had defected.

"I’m a football man, not a politician. I will not answer that question," Gonzalez told reporters.

Meanwhile, 13 young Haitians who left their World Cup-bound team from John F. Kennedy International Airport had been accounted for yesterday. Two had gone to Boston, and the rest were in New York City, according to Felix Augustin, the consul general.

The players could not be reached for comment, so their exact motivation for fleeing was not known. But Augustin said they were whisked away in a scheme engineered by U.S. friends and relatives.

"These children were manipulated," Augustin said at a news conference in his Madison Avenue office. "It was organized. Absolutely."

The youths, all under 17, disappeared during a stopover on their way to an exhibition tournament ahead of the youth World Cup in South Korea. The players and coaches went to a McDonald’s near the airport when 13 of them voluntarily got into a van that sped away, Augustin said.