By Dave Bullard/WRVO
NEW YORK CITY – The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team remained stuck in New York City Wednesday, as the governments of the United States, England and Canada tried to sort out a flap involving the team's passports.
The team, made up of lacrosse players from reserves in New York and Canada, intended to fly to Manchester, England for the World Lacrosse Championships, which begin Thursday.
Late Wednesday, under pressure from former U. S. Senator from New York and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the American government offered to accept the team's passports for one last time. However, the English government refused to do so, stranding the team in New York and making it impossible to get to Manchester in time for its first round game.
At issue are the passports carried by team members. They come from the Iroquois Confederacy. Team officials say those passports not only reflect the national status of the players, but are required at the tournament to prove their eligibility to play on the Iroquois team.
U.S. State Department officials have said that passport regulations have changed and the Iroquois passports, used as recently as two weeks ago, no longer meet standards.
Congressman Dan Maffei of Syracuse, who has also been applying pressure on behalf of the team, denounced the lack of a resolution as "odd and contradictory", given that the team was not competing for the United States but on behalf of the Iroquois nations.
"If the British...seeks to sever this (Iroquois) Nationals team from their own national identity, then they are asking them to not be the athletes that they are," he said.