Historically, in Caribbean football, the Haiti national football team have a good standing. They are one of the few smaller island nations to actually make it to a World cup finals competition. In 1974 Haiti made it to the World cup held in West-Germany after coming through a tough qualification campaign. Their group proved to be tougher still as they were drawn alongside Italy, Argentina and Poland.

Haiti as a country is known worldwide for the wrong reasons. It is a country that has been deeply affected in recent history by natural disasters. In 2004 the country was hit by a hurricane and in 2008 it was decimated by four tropical storms in the space of four weeks. Unfortunately worse was still to come as in 2010 the country was hit by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake. It was the most severe earthquake to affect Haiti in 200 years. In football terms it was believed that 30 players, coaches, referee’s and medical staff with links to Haitian football lost their lives. Another 20 were feared buried in the ruins.