By: Leon Cui

Haiti is officially having its first Women’s World Cup, but unfortunately, there was a conspiracy.

FIFA has been welcoming female players into the game and has tried to protect those new players, but despite FIFA’s efforts, Jean Bart, the former Haitian Soccer Federation president, has been accused of sexually assaulting underage players. Although he has gone to court for this but claimed that this is a scheme that his enemies devised very carefully, FIFA found that he had sexually abused mutiple female players and banned him from attending competitions for his life.

However, even though that ban is supposed to be for his life, in reality it lasted just a few days. Jean Bart appealed the ruling and the case went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The arbitrators said that FIFA’s evidence was uncredible, and there was not enough evidence to prove the assault occurred, so the punishment was canceled.

One of the victims said that when Jean-Bart repeatedly groped her on her breasts and inner thigh and once forcibly kissed her as they rode in the back of a car. His inappropriate touching and uncomfortable questions often occurred in front of other adults, she said, which to her meant no one else at the Federation would stop him. She was 17 and 18, she said, when, in the space of a few months, four other Haitian football officials attempted to sexually assault her.

But some players think that those decisions are ridiculous, such as an Argentine player whose name was not revealed. “In anti-doping cases, the standard athletes are held to is absurd. You have one trace of anything, and you’re automatically banned before there’s any investigation done. But in this case, you’ve got a guy who’s still working in football, which is a privilege. He was at the helm of a group of minors, and FIFA didn’t even suspend him during the investigation.”