The Dominican Republic has banned Haiti’s national football team from playing at its sports venues after fans forced their way through entrances and damaged a gate before a CONCACAF Nations League match in Santo Domingo.
Sports Minister Kelvin Cruz announced the decision following the trouble at the Felix Sanchez Olympic Stadium on Thursday night. Videos shared on social media appeared to show groups of supporters pushing through entrances, with one gate damaged.
“What we saw yesterday with a gate at the Felix Sanchez, a sports facility that has cost millions and millions of pesos to make it shine, is unacceptable,” Mr Cruz said, citing a zero-tolerance policy on indiscipline.
Dominican Republic president Luis Abinader backed the ban, saying: “The position of the Sports Minister is the position of the Government.”
Haiti’s embassy in Santo Domingo said the remarks had been made “in the heat of competition and the intensity characteristic of sporting events” and did not represent the Haitian government’s position.
The embassy thanked Dominican authorities for hosting the event and said: “Sporting rivalries must not call into question relations of good neighborliness and mutual respect that must prevail between the two states.”
Haiti won the match 4-1, with Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor scoring twice. The result put Haiti on nine points in Group A, while the Dominican Republic remained on six; Haiti are due to play Costa Rica in San Jose on Sunday.
Isidor was filmed saying: “Hispaniola is Haiti.” Hispaniola is the Caribbean island shared by the two countries, which have long-standing disputes over migration and border security.
Jose Deschamps, president of the Dominican Football Federation, described the remark as “a lack of respect for national sovereignty” and said the federation would submit a complaint to FIFA and CONCACAF.
The dispute comes amid increased deportations of undocumented Haitians by Mr Abinader’s government. In October 2024, it pledged to deport up to 10,000 people a week.
Sport has previously been drawn into tensions between the neighbours. In 2023, after Mr Abinader closed the border during a dispute over a Haitian canal on the shared Massacre River, Haiti’s sports ministry ordered its football federation to stop staging national-team matches in the Dominican Republic.
