AS THE European Championship and Copa America were coming to an end, the equivalent competition in Concacaf, the Gold Cup, was just getting under way in the United States.

This region includes national teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as three teams on the South American continent: Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana.

The tournament itself features heavyweights and favourites Mexico along with the likes of the United States and Canada.

Other previous winners of Concacaf championships, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras, are also taking part in this 2021 edition, while 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar were invited as guests.

One country that won’t be present is Cuba. Their team were left stranded in Nicaragua, having been unable to obtain visas to travel to the US for their qualifying game.

This is disappointing for many reasons, political and sporting. 

On the pitch, this is one of the strongest-looking Cuban sides in recent memory. 

Since the World Cup qualifiers earlier this year they have been more open to selecting professional players working outside Cuba and the surrounding area.

The most high-profile of these was Norwich City winger Onel Hernandez who at 28 years old was able to represent his country for the first time.

It was a similar story for other Europe-based players such as Carlos “Cavafe” Vazquez and veteran striker Joel Apezteguia who made his international debut at the age of 37. 

This has created a Cuba squad that is a bit of an unknown quantity and one that has the potential to cause upsets the longer they train and play together.

“A team is not made in a week or a month, but over a longer period of time and with stability,” Cuba coach Pablo Elier Sanchez told Cubadebate last month.

“In football, the pieces require interconnection and to be able to make decisions based on circumstances for which they must be prepared.”

After bringing this new-look team together for the World Cup qualifiers, these players were then called up for the Gold Cup, but their participation in the tournament was over before it began.

Cuba were due to enter into the Gold Cup at the Prelims stage having not qualified automatically via the 2019-20 Nations League.

Given the other two teams in their three-team Nations League group were the United States and Canada, these Prelim qualifiers were always going to be Cuba’s most realistic path to the Gold Cup.

With their new-look squad, they stood a good chance of qualifying and this process in itself, regardless of success, was important to Pablo Elier Sanchez’s aforementioned team-building efforts.

The draw pitted them against French Guiana, with a likely meeting against Trinidad and Tobago in the all-important second-round game, with both fixtures to be played in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

But, these being representatives of Cuba travelling the United States, there was the additional qualifying round that involved simply entering the host country.

The team had been training in Guatemala before moving to Nicaragua as, according to a report by Inside World Football, they felt this route would provide for a smoother process than travelling to Miami directly from Cuba.

The fact Cuba is much closer to Florida than either of these nations (Miami is around 230 miles from Havana but over 1,000 miles from Nicaraguan capital Managua) shows how absurd this scenario was.

It turned out that this route was just as troublesome, with Concacaf confirming hours before Cuba were due to meet French Guiana that “unfortunately, due to Covid-19 related travel and visa challenges, and the required Covid-19 testing regime, their match tonight against French Guiana will not take place.”

This meant their opponents were awarded a 3-0 win and Cuba were out of the tournament without having played a game.

The Cuban FA spoke of problems obtaining visas to enter the US, with no mention of the Covid-19 issues raised by Concacaf.

“The Cuban national team was not able to travel to Florida to participate in the Concacaf Gold Cup because the government of the United States did not grant the corresponding visas,” a statement from the Cuban FA read.

“Once again, issues unrelated to sports prevent our country from competing on US soil on equal terms with our rivals, violating the precepts of fair play and the legitimate rights of any sports delegation.

“The US government has no justification whatsoever to deny us entry into their country, and therefore to prevent us from taking part in a competition in which we have been part of on many occasions.

“Such disrespect deserves not only our most energetic rejection but also the urgent attention of international sports institutions.

“Cuban athletes, in fact, no athlete in the world, should have to face an outrage of this nature.”

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez was also candid with his explanation of the situation.

“The United States government cannot justify delaying the visa to the Cuban football team which was preparing to participate in the Gold Cup and processed its application in advance in a third country [Nicaragua],” he said. 

“The blockade hurts the Cuban people, Concacaf and frustrates sports dreams.”

The players were devastated by the decision which meant their Gold Cup participation ended before they’d even stepped on the pitch.

They had gone out of their way to train in Guatemala and travelled extra miles this summer as they were eager to represent Cuba on the international stage.

Hernandez spoke publicly of his disappointment which was shared by the rest of the players. 

“We trained for a whole month preparing us for the Gold Cup in America,” Hernandez tweeted on the day of the game.

“The game is today at seven o’clock in Miami we are all still sitting here in the hotel in Nicaragua [waiting] for a visa for some players.

“How is that possible that all our competitors are there and we are not, Concacaf?

“It’s a sad day for Cuban football,” Hernandez added after the game was cancelled. “I never saw my teammates crying like that. They sacrificed so much.”

Concacaf has now referred the matter to its disciplinary committee, stating that it “received further information which highlights that other administrative issues at the Cuba Football Association contributed to the team not travelling, and subsequently forfeiting their Prelims match against French Guiana.”

This latest statement appears to place the responsibility for the “administrative issues” back on the Cuban FA, but that they were in this position in the first place, travelling around Central America in the hope of easier passage to the US, is farcical.

Even aside from the ongoing blockade and sanctions placed on Cuba by the United States, the simple fact that an international football team was unable to enter the host country of an international football tournament suggests the US is not fit to host such tournaments with the situation as it stands.

Given the nature of football as a global game and a global language, it is inevitably intertwined with politics. Given the nature of the region, this is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the Concacaf countries and territories.

The plight of the Cuban players should at least raise awareness of the situation, though this incident and other political issues within the region’s football are relatively under-reported.

While Qatar were invited from outside Concacaf without having to qualify, Cuba, Concacaf members, were turned away without even being given a chance to play for their place.