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The players attended their visa appointments at the U.S. embassy in Guatemala City on Friday with “all the documents required to support their applications,” but they were denied their visas, the federation said in a statement. The team was planning to travel to Florida a couple of days before the event.
A State Department official said the agency can’t share details of individual cases because visa records are confidential under federal law. The Guatemalan soccer officials didn’t elaborate on why the visas were denied.
Guatemala will still participate in the championship, the federation said, but the situation is putting them at a “disadvantage by the terms of Fair Play.” The coaching team had chosen and trained those players for this specific event, they said.
The Guatemalan team is set to face the US, Haiti and Suriname teams in the first phase of the tournament. A total of 42 teams are competing this year.
Players born on or after Jan. 1, 2004 are eligible to participate in the tournament.
The agreement comes after Trump threatened Guatemala with tariffs and remittance fees earlier this week.
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