Haiti’s World Cup return and the promise of a global nation

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JERSEY CITY, NJ — In 1974, Haiti arrived at the World Cup carrying the dreams of a nation. In 2026, it returns, in the biggest FIFA World Cup yet, carrying the dreams of a nation — and its diaspora.

The two journeys are inseparable.

When Haiti qualified for its first World Cup in West Germany, most Haitians experienced the moment from homes, bars and neighborhood gathering places in Port-au-Prince and the provinces. Today, millions will watch from New York and Miami, Montreal and Paris, Santiago and Springfield with unparalleled fervor. The team that once represented a small Caribbean nation now represents something larger: a people scattered across continents yet bound by language, memory, culture and pride.

I learned that lesson in a crowded living room in 1974.

I was a mere wisp of a teenager then, squeezed among family and friends in Bel Air, then a middle-class seaside suburb of Haiti’s capital, as we watched Haiti face mighty Italy. The Duvalier dictatorship hung over the country like a permanent storm cloud. Fear was woven into daily life. Opportunity was scarce. But for 90 minutes, the clouds parted.

Then, Emmanuel Sanon scored. 

For one suspended second, the dictatorship’s grip cracked. Joy rushed through the opening. Our house erupted. The street answered. Across Haiti, thousands of living rooms became miniature stadiums.

We knew we were witnessing history. Sanon’s goal ended Italy’s remarkable streak of not conceding a goal after losing to Brazil in the 1970 World Cup. More importantly, it announced that Haiti belonged on football’s grandest stage. What none of us could have imagined was that Haiti’s football story would soon become intertwined with another story: the story of migration.

Building a nation abroad

While we celebrated Sanon’s goal, another game was already underway. Quietly and steadily, Haiti was exporting its people. The diaspora that would eventually circle the globe was beginning to take shape, like a river leaving its source and branching into countless streams.

Political instability, economic hardship, and the search for opportunity carried Haitians to New York and Miami, Montreal and Paris, Boston and Santiago, and dozens of cities in between. They built businesses and organizations. They raised families. They created community organizations. They preserved traditions. And they sent money home.

Over time, the diaspora became one of Haiti’s greatest assets.

Every year, billions of dollars flow back to Haiti through remittances. Those dollars put food on tables, pay school tuition, cover rent, and help families weather crisis after crisis. For decades, the diaspora has served and remains Haiti’s unofficial social safety net.

But survival and development are not the same thing. If Haiti is to rebuild, the relationship between the homeland and its diaspora must evolve. The diaspora cannot remain merely an ATM for relatives and friends. It must become a strategic partner in Haiti’s future.

That requires something Haiti has often lacked: structure. Not another fundraising drive. Not another emergency appeal. Structure, like in football.

Institutions that can channel diaspora capital into investment. Networks that can connect expertise to opportunity. Systems that transform generosity into lasting economic growth. Sending money home helps families survive. Investing helps communities thrive. One pays this month’s bills. The other builds next generation wealth.

The Haitian diaspora includes entrepreneurs, physicians, engineers, educators, lawyers, journalists, financiers, and technology leaders. It possesses expertise and resources that many countries would envy. Yet too often those assets remain fragmented, disconnected, and underutilized.

What’s next: Imagination and organization 

Imagine diaspora investment funds supporting local entrepreneurs. Imagine professional associations mentoring young leaders in Haiti. Imagine chambers of commerce, universities, civic organizations and investors working from a common playbook.

The diaspora is no longer simply a community abroad. It is a global network. And networks become transformative when they are organized around a shared purpose. That is one reason Haiti’s return to the World Cup feels so meaningful.

This team is the living map of the Haitian diaspora. Its roster traces migration routes more accurately than any atlas. Players developed in France, Canada, the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere have chosen to wear Haiti’s colors. They are the children and grandchildren of migration. They embody a simple but powerful truth: distance does not diminish belonging.

Their stories mirror our own. Many grew up navigating multiple cultures, multiple languages, and multiple identities. Yet when the national anthem plays, they stand beneath a single flag. In that sense, this team offers a lesson that extends far beyond sports.

It demonstrates what becomes possible when talent scattered across the world rallies around a common mission. The same principle applies to Haiti itself.

For years, conversations about Haiti have been dominated by crises. Political crisis. Economic crisis. Security crisis. Humanitarian crisis. Those challenges are real. But nations are not rebuilt by crisis management alone. They are rebuilt by vision. They are rebuilt by institutions. They are rebuilt by people who believe tomorrow can be different from today.

The diaspora has an indispensable role in that work, not as spectators watching from afar, but as stakeholders helping shape the future. In many ways, Haiti’s World Cup team offers a glimpse of what that future could look like. Talent spread across countries and continents. A shared identity. A common purpose. A belief that together they can accomplish something larger than any individual could achieve alone.

Going for the goal after the final whistle

I will be back in Elizabeth, New Jersey, hosting The Haitian Times watch parties during the tournament. It feels fitting. Elizabeth is where my American journey began shortly after Haiti’s last World Cup appearance. The distance between those two points, Haiti and Elizabeth, once seemed enormous. Today they feel connected by a single thread.

The World Cup has become our gathering place, a giant family reunion stretched across oceans and borders. For ninety minutes, millions of Haitians around the world will lean forward in their seats, holding the same breath.

Just as we did in 1974.

And if the ball finds the back of the net again, the cheers will travel farther than Emmanuel Sanon could ever have imagined, echoing from Port-au-Prince to Paris, from Boston to Elizabeth, from Montreal to Mexico City.

Those cheers will celebrate more than a goal. They will celebrate possibility. The possibility that Haiti’s greatest strength is not found solely within its borders, but also in the millions of Haitians who carry the country with them wherever they go.

The possibility that a group of people scattered across the world can still move in the same direction.

And the possibility that the next great Haitian victory will not be measured only on a soccer field, but in the businesses we build, the institutions we strengthen, the opportunities we create and the future we choose to shape together.

That would be a victory worthy of celebration long after the final whistle.

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