The Belize men’s national soccer team was stopped by gunmen in Haiti just minutes after it had arrived in the country for a World Cup qualifier — and video from the scene is beyond troubling.
The Belize national team officials said in a statement Monday they were making their way from the airport to their hotel 3 days prior to their big soccer match … when a band of armed insurgents on motorcycles pulled them over at gunpoint.
You can hear the soccer players in the bus describing the demands the insurgents were making — “They said, ‘Pull over or else!'”
The footage shot from inside the team bus shows dozens of men — some armed with large firearms — order the driver to pull to the side of the road, despite the team having a 4-man police escort.
Belize officials said cops were forced to “negotiate” with the men in order to leave unharmed — and, thankfully, they were allowed to move forward with no one getting hurt in the confrontation.
No word on what the team had to give the men in order to leave.
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“The situation is one that the team should have never faced,” team officials said after the incident, “but we are pleased to report that our Jaguars, although shaken by the terrible experience, are safely at their hotel.”
The team added it’s “currently in contact with respective authorities from FIFA and Concacaf and are doing everything possible to get them to safer grounds.”
“It is unfortunate that our Jaguars faced such a traumatic experience.”
Belize is slated to play Haiti in Port-Au-Prince on March 25 — a key game for Belize as it attempts to qualify for the World Cup (set for 2022 in Qatar) for the first time ever.