Fourteen-year-old Bernivens Bernadotte, an aspiring soccer player living in Longueuil, Que., has been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to spend a week at Real Madrid CF’s training centre in Spain where his own hero, Kylian Mbappé, practises.
But it’s looking like that won’t happen.
Bernivens’s application to travel outside Canada was rejected because the teen, who is originally from Haiti, is an asylum seeker and therefore doesn’t have a valid immigration status to leave the country.
He was supposed to head to Madrid last summer, but given the application holdup, the program’s organizers postponed his stay to this summer. It’s his last chance.
“What I’ve done, I don’t want it to go down the drain,” he told Radio-Canada in French. “I want to fulfil my dream … so when I learned the news it made me extremely sad.”
The fear of a stunted career has kept him up at night, and his mother’s sleep isn’t any better.
“I’ve written, I’ve called, I’ve asked deputies for help… there was nothing else I could do,” said Enive Bernadotte. “When your child suffers, you suffer as well.”
“I think Bernivens can make it [big], he only needs one chance,” she said.
Bernadotte is the only member of her family with refugee status, having arrived in Canada before her husband and children. She included them in her 2022 permanent residence application, but the answer could still take years. Bernivens arrived three years ago.
“My dream is far from me. The more I grow, the further my dream gets,” he said.
Immigration lawyer Gabrielle Thiboutot says the thresholds imposed by Quebec on the number of permanent residents admitted annually cause long delays for applicants.
Radio-Canada reached out to Bernadotte’s MNA Ian Lafrenière who told them that he cannot comment on specific cases. Nonetheless, he said his office is in touch with the family and the minister of immigration and that they’re following the situation closely.
Radio-Canada reached out to both the provincial and federal immigration ministries over the long weekend but did not hear back in time for publication.
For years, all Bernivens asked for were cleats and to be registered with a soccer club, says his mother.
“He never asks for Christmas gifts, he doesn’t ask for birthday gifts,” said Bernadotte.
He trains rain or shine — or snow — and is often seen by his coach, Amro Moustafa, slipping on his cleats after school while other students book it toward the buses.
“I’ve rarely seen talent like that in all my years of experience,” he said. “It’s very rare to see skill like that at that age.”
And it’s clear the hard work has paid off. Bernivens first participated in a soccer camp run by Real Madrid CF in Montreal and was then selected to take part in the camp in Spain at the club’s official training complex.
Though other opportunities may present themselves in the future, Bernivens says he’s worried about what missing this one might mean for him. For now, he’s keeping his sights fixed on his dream.
“My dream is to become a soccer player for Real Madrid, like Mbappé, to dribble like Neymar, to inspire the world, to cheer in the stadium, to see my parents cheer when I score, and to see the people who have supported me … my best friends, shout: ‘Yes! Go Berni!'”
