Mount Pleasant FA think they have been dealt an unfair blow as they will have to travel to Los Angeles, California, next week, to take on United States Major League Soccer (MLS) giants Los Angeles Galaxy in the Concacaf Champions League first-leg quarter-final match.

Up to 10 first team players have not been granted visas to travel to the United States, Paul Christie, the Mount Pleasant sporting director, said.

The team is set to depart for the US on Sunday for the match on March 11. The return leg is scheduled for March 19 at the National Stadium in Jamaica.

Christie said he felt his team had not been allowed “fair play”. He added that they “had not been given the opportunity to field” their “best starting 11”.

He noted that the club has gone as far as appealing for help from Concacaf, the continental governing body for football.

“We don’t want to just show up for the game, we want to be able to compete but we are not being given the opportunity to be at our best,” Christie told the Jamaica Observer on Thursday.

“[This is] not just about Brand Mount Pleasant, but this is also about Brand Jamaica,” he said.

Christie said Mount Pleasant Head Coach Theodore Whitmore and the coaching staff will have to rely on “seven or eight academy kids, including those who represented Jamaica at the Concacaf Under-20 qualifying first-round tournament that ended in Curacao on Tuesday.

Mount Pleasant have several Haitian players in their squad. The French-speaking Caribbean nation is on a list of countries whose citizens are faced with US travel restrictions under the Donald Trump-led administration.

Christie said the affected players had not even been able to get a date for the interviews at the US Embassy. He said the rebuff had “significantly and severely handicapped” their chances.

He said they had finally reached one of the major milestones in their project that started three to four years ago, “only for this major hurdle to slow us down”.

Mount Pleasant qualified for the regional Champions League quarter-finals after winning the Concacaf Caribbean Cup, beating Dominican Republic team Universidad O&M FC in the two-way final, earning a bye to the first round of the play-offs.

— Paul A Reid

Mount Pleasant Football Academy’s Daniel Green (left) and Jahshaun Anglin (centre) run off to celebrate with goalscorer Kimoni Bailey during the first leg of the Concacaf Caribbean Cup final against host O&M FC at Cibao FC Stadium in the Dominican Republic on November 25, 2025. (Photo: Concacaf)

CHRISTIE… we want to be able to compete but we are not being given the opportunity to be at our best