The Gold Cup has received a shake-up as Nicaragua were suspended from the tournament by the Concacaf disciplinary committee due to fielding an ineligible player for eight matches, which included some of their Concacaf Nations League matches in the 2022-23 edition of the tournament.
Nicaragua will be replaced in Group A -- which includes the United States -- by Trinidad & Tobago. That will make the full group Jamaica, The United States, Trinidad & Tobago as well a team that makes it through the play-in rounds, which begin on June 16.
Since T&T were among the teams in that round, they'll be replaced by Antigua and Barbuda due to that being the team with the highest points total in League B of the Concacaf Nations League to not qualify for the Gold Cup.
It is believed the ineligible player is Richard Rodriguez, a midfielder born in Uruguay.
While Rodriguez has become a citizen of Nicaragua after moving to the country to play for Real Esteli, according to FIFA, a naturalized player has to live in a country that they are taking citizenship in for at least five years before representing the national team. Rodriguez had not done that before debuting for Nicaragua in 2019 and still was not eligible prior to playing in this season's Nations League tournament.
Currently representing Liberia in Costa Rica, Rodriguez has 19 caps for Nicaragua. In further penalties, Nicaragua will be relegated to League B for the 2023-24 edition of the Nations League and they'll be replaced by Trinidad & Tobago in League A of that competition as well due to T&T being the highest second-place team from all League B groups in the 2022-23 tournament.
With this change, the United States will now technically play two preliminary round teams as either Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Guyana or Grenada will claim the final spot in Group A.
