Haiti qualified for their first-ever World Cup thanks to a combination of bribery, voodoo, poisoning and intimidation, a Caribbean football legend has revealed.
Scotland face the minnows this weekend in their opening game of the tournament and first for 28 years, in Boston.
It will be Haiti's first appearance in the competition for 52 years, and they have been widely praised for qualifying because they were not allowed to play any of their home games in their homeland because of the highly volatile political instability.
But the story of how they reached the World Cup in 1974 remains a bitter controversy to this day, according to Trinidad and Tobago and MLS ace Steve David.
Back then, FIFA decided they would play the CONCACAF qualifying games as a one-off, six-team tournament, with all games being played in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, despite the nation being under the dictatorship of their president, 'Baby Doc' Jean-Claude Duvalier.
It all came down to the final qualifier between the hosts and Trinidad and Tobago.
But in a highly controversial encounter, Trinidad had four goals disallowed, after most of their squad were taken ill with sickness before the game and they lost 2-1.
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FIFA later banned referee Jose Roberto Henríquez and linesman James Higuet for life after the game. David said: "We dominated the match and scored four perfectly good goals. But each time the referee disallowed them for no apparent reason.
"They scored two minutes from the end and their own fans didn't even properly celebrate because it was so obvious what was happening. I've never seen a tournament with so much dark arts going on.
"Most of the squad played despite having stomach cramps and being sick. We were clearly poisoned too. Haiti had their voodoo bokors and spiritual practitioners put a curse on us. There were rituals near the stadium to try and unsettle us through fear and intimidation.
"To this day, if you say to anyone in the Caribbean about the 'Haitian Robbery', they know exactly what you are talking about."
Trinidad and Tobago were expected to launch an appeal to FIFA, but curiously decided against it.
Their general secretary was Jack Warner, who later went on to become vice president of FIFA and President of CONCACAF before he was banned for life for corruption in 2015.
