Haiti have been forced to change their kit design just days before their World Cup opener against Scotland after their shirt, depicting a war scene, failed to comply with Fifa rules.<\/p>\n
An illustration of the Battle of Vertieres in 1803, which secured Haiti’s independence, with the country’s flag had been embedded on the shirts worn in both of their pre-tournament friendlies.<\/p>\n
However, equipment regulations set out by the world governing body prohibits the use of any “political, religious, or personal messages or slogans” on kit.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Colombian manufacturer Saeta said its original design “was a tribute to the men and women who contribute every day to Haiti’s future” and “was not intended as a political statement”.<\/p>\n
It added: “Fifa determined that certain visual elements could be interpreted differently under its equipment regulations and ultimately requested modifications to the design.<\/p>\n
“While this interpretation differed from our intention, Saeta respected the process and implemented the final requirements communicated by Fifa.”<\/p>\n
Haiti begin their first World Cup campaign in 52 years against Scotland at Boston Stadium, Foxborough on Saturday evening (Sunday 02:00 BST).<\/p>\n
The Caribbean country then face five-time winners Brazil and Morocco in Group C.<\/p>\n
In their only previous World Cup appearance in 1974, Haiti lost all three group games and conceded 14 goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Haiti have been forced to change their kit design just days before their World Cup opener against Scotland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-632274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}