A Letter from Joe Namphy. September 24th, 2006 Joe Namphy Dear Friends, Fans, and Supporters of Haitian Football, With very limited support from some sponsors, friends and football fans who are backing our BACK TO AFRICA MOVEMENT, we just finished putting the final touches to prepare our National Team A for the DIGICEL CUP in Jamaica next week. The team is training right now at Sylvio Cator Stadium twice a day, under the direction of Coach Carlo Marcelin and the "SUPER MOTIVATOR" Ze Nono Jean Baptiste. We will be departing Monday morning on a chartered plane for Kingston. We want to show to all the sectors of Haitian Society that in Haitian Football, we are combining the talents and resources of both Haiti and the Diaspora to achieve our goal, which is to take Haiti BACK TO AFRICA IN 2010, and make every Haitian proud of being Haitian, whether they live in Haiti or abroad. We are one nation that stands united to carry our flag to all the countries where football is played. We are making a serious effort to really live our motto, "L'UNION FAIT LA FORCE". We are already the Champions of the Caribbean in the Under 17 category by defeating in Trinidad last month Trinidad, 1-0, Barbados 5-0, Surinam 7-1, St Marteen 10-0 and Cayman Islands 5-0. We are now qualified for the Under 17 World Cup in 2007. Under the leadership of the President of the Federation, Dr. Yves (Dadou) Jean Bart, Julio Cadet, vice president and Lionel Desir, secretary general, we now have nine national teams training and preparing for different competitions at CONCACAF, CARIBBEAN FOOTBALL UNION and FIFA. We have five men's teams and four girls teams, Under 17, Under 20, Under 23, National Team A and also Under 15 for the men. This is an extremely ambitious program being maintained without hardly any support from the state or the Haitian private sector,with some generous exceptions. Countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, United States and Canada, our direct competitors in CONCACAF, have annual budgets ranging from $10 million dolllars for Cuba, Jamaica and Trinidad, to $150 million dollars for Mexico and the United States. We are very fortunate to have found DIGICEL, an Irish company, as a sponsor of the 16 clubs of the National Division and the Men's National Team A for the next four years. But obviously, that is not enough to support nine national teams. We need at least ten (10) or twenty (20) more sponsors to follow the example of DIGICEL and invest in our young people in an area where they have already proven they have the talent to make it to the top. We did it in Germany 1974. We can do it again. But it is going to take money, lots of it. In 2004, Trinidad's private sector and Diaspora added $20 million dollars to the government's $10 million to qualify Trinidad to the last World Cup in Germany 2006. They hired Dutch coach Leo Benhakker for $1.3 million dollars per year. Trinidad chartered a Boeing 747 to fly its team to Bahrain for the last game that qualified them to Germany 2006. Guatemala, which has never qualified for the World Cup, just committed $10 million dollars to the Federation and hired Colombian Coach Hernan Dario Gomez for four years at one million dollars a year to qualify Guatemala to the 2010 World Cup. Coach Gomez qualified Colombia for France 1998 and Ecuador for Germany 2006 and took Ecuador to the second round last June. Dominican Republic, which lost two friendly games to Haiti last week, 3-1 in St Marc, and 2-1 in PAP, now has a Yugoslav/Serbian Coach signed for four years who told us that within two years he will have the D.R. National Team at today's Haiti level. Real Madrid is supporting a Football Academy in the D.R. with Spanish coaches. Puerto Rico has a Professional Team, the Islanders, playing in the United Soccer League, with Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Rochester, Atlanta, etc..., the League we want to join. Everybody in our neighboorhood is investing big bucks in the game of football, Haiti cannot stay idle and expect to perform miracles every time. For the DIGICEL CUP, we have pulled all the stops. We are bringing in six of our professional players to Jamaica, including Fabrice Noel from Colorado Rapids, Stephane Guillaume and Jamil Jean Jacques from Miami F.C., Pierre Jean Jacques from Nantes F.C., Josue Mayard from Norway and Marc Herold from France. These tickets are not cheap, neither is the chartered flight to Jamaica, and FIFA helped us in getting the respective clubs to liberate the Haitian players for our National Team. Any contribution to the cause would be greatly appreciated. We still have a lot of needs. You are going to start hearing some new names of young Haitian players that may explode in these three games against St Lucia on the 27th, St Vincent and the Grenadines on the 29th, and Jamaica on the 1st of October. The first two teams qualify for the GOLD CUP of 2007. We are not taking any game for granted. Thanks to DIGICEL, all the games will be broadcast live over Radio and Television to all the 20 islands serviced by DIGICEL, including Haiti. THIS IS A RENDEZ VOUS WE CANNOT MISS. WE ARE BACK ON THE BIG STAGE. HAITI MUST PREVAIL IN FRONT OF SUCH A LARGE AUDIENCE AND ESTABLISH SUPREMACY OVER ITS NEIGHBOORS. GO HAITI. UNTIL 2010. WE THANK ALL OF YOU THAT HAVE ALREADY SENT THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS. Best Wishes, Joe Namphy Joe Namphy & Associates Email: joenamphy@yahoo.com Florida Telephone: 954-749-9173 ... Cell: 954-298-1847 Haiti Telephone: Before 3 PM: 786-380-4062 ...After 3 PM: 305-720-2865 or 011-509-245-5003 Haiti Cell: 011-509-526-4959
This is nothing new....Haiti does not even get half a million dollars a year for their football program. I consider them to be doing quit well under those circumstances. Investing in Haiti is very dificult. My father's company tried to invest in Haiti to help out the NT...the money never got to destination ( corruption). I remember at WC qualifying in 2004 vs Jamaica in Miami, the team did not have enough money to fly in some of their best players from abroad. That game ended in a 1-1 tie.
Yesterday at the Press conference for Group D - Digicel Cup ... DIGICEL CARIBBEAN CUP: Jamaica's interim head coach Carl Brown (left) poses with the Digicel Caribbean Cup with (from left) Burchell Gibson, general secretary of the JFF, communications manager for marketing at Digicel, Wayne Miller, Haiti's head coach Carlo Marcelin - in Red and St Vincent and the Grenadines' technical director and head coach Zoran Vranes during yesterday's launch of the Jamaican leg of the tournament at the offices of the JFF. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)
Good luck to Haiti in tomorrow's game against St. Lucia. I don't like this group because I want to see Jamaica, Haiti, and St. Vincent/Grenadines in the Gold Cup, and obviously one of them has to get knocked out right now.