The United States has granted a license to Cuban baseball players residing in its territory to participate with the Cuban team that will participate in the next World Baseball Classicsaid Saturday the president of the Cuban Federation of this sport, Juan Reinaldo Pérez.
With this decision, the ninth Cuban will be the first since Fidel Castro eliminated professionalism in the sport on the island that will include Cuban players residing in the United States.
The state’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) said earlier this month that Washington was blocking some of its players from qualifying for the V World Classic, which will be held March 8-21, as they needed a permit due to Washington’s embargo against Havana.
“We have received a communication from the Clásico organizers announcing that the license requested by them has been granted. so that the Cuba team can register Cuban athletes on its roster, whether they are MLB (Major League Baseball) or not, who reside in the United States,” the official said, as quoted by the official website. Hit.
“The communication specifies that they will soon communicate the details of the license granted. Once that happens, we will be able to announce Team Cuba’s pre-pay,” he added.
“While we recognize these gestures as positive steps, it is necessary to emphasize that this was the only fair solution to the problem,” he said.
“It is arbitrary and discriminatory that a permit from the government of the United States is necessary for the organizers of a sporting event to guarantee the participation of a country like Cuba, which is not only the founder of these competitions, but which has also deserved its inclusion in classifying it like the rest of the 19 teams that will participate in the V Clásico”, he added.
“It is just as unfair that the Cuban athletes, because those we are going to call are Cubans, trained in our country and who, despite all the pressures, want to represent their people, also depend on an authorization from the American government to fulfill their dream of playing with the country where they were born,” added the FCB president.
—
Juan Reinaldo Pérez avoided mentioning that For decades, the Cuban regime has labeled athletes who decide to pursue professional careers on their own in world leagues as traitors and deserters. Also that for this reason, he imposes on them a sentence of at least eight years without allowing them to return to Cuba.
Likewise, despite their insistence on seeing themselves as victims, It was the Cuban authorities who for decades denied these emigrant players the opportunity to represent their country in international tournaments.
Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told Reuters earlier this month that the United States was “blocking” some of Cuba’s top players from the upcoming World Classic.
FCB’s insistence that Cuban baseball players who play in the major leagues were not allowed to be part of the national team that will compete in the tournament reflects the desperation of the authorities of the island to get rid of these players in the face of the decline of the national sport.
After refusing to summon these athletes for decades and ignoring their results in the best baseball in the world, the entity subordinate to the Cuban regime had no alternative but to turn to them. The sequence of failures of national teams in international competitionsmore than fan requests inside and outside the island, they forced the regime to abandon its position vis-à-vis these actors.
More than 650 Cuban baseball players have left for the United States and other countries in the past six years, according to official INDER figures.
Cuba has scheduled its first match of the V World Classic in Taiwan on March 8, 2023. The Cuban team won the silver medal at the 2006 tournament in San Diego, USA.
