NEW YORK – A week-long international dispute over the use of Haudenosaunee passports has caused the Iroquois Nationals to forfeit the opening game of the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships, but team members were still hoping to fly to England for the remaining matches.

The top-ranking Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team was still in New York on Thursday, July 15 when they were supposed to play a match against the English host team at 7 p.m. Manchester time on the opening day of the world championships.

The team’s lawyers and board members were continuing diplomatic efforts with the British government to issue visas for the 50-person delegation of players, coaches, family members and supporters.

“I feel betrayed, and I have 23 players here who are anxious to play,” Percy Abrams, the Iroquois Nationals executive director, told AOL News in New York. “We’re just trying to keep up hope that somehow we’ll be able to make game two this Saturday.”

By Thursday, team members had overcome a barrier to their travel posed by the U.S. government and now faced obstacles placed by the British and Canadian governments.

But their spirits were bolstered when they showed up at a field in Oyster Bay on Long Island to practice, and found signs posted in the neighborhood saying, “Welcome Nationals!” We support you!” “Go Nationals!”

A crowd had gathered to watch them practice and cheer them on, and many told the players that they had called and e-mailed British officials in support of the team.

The team was scheduled to leave July 11, but three days earlier the British government announced it would not recognize the Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports and asked the U.S. government for written assurance that the players would be allowed to return to their homes.

The U.S. government also refused to honor the Iroquois passports even though they’ve been used for decades for international travel.

The State Department earlier had offered to provide team members with U.S. passports – an offer that was unanimously refused because it would violate the sovereignty of the six Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) Confederacy nations – the Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Tuscarora and Cayuga.

After an international media blitz and outpourings of support from thousands of people, the State Department decided on July 14 to provide the British with the assurance they sought and agreed to issue one-time waivers that would allow the players to travel on their Haudenosaunee passports. But by that time the British had set a new condition: Team members must travel on U.S. or Canadian passports.

By Thursday, the Canadian government had not yet confirmed whether it would intervene on behalf of the 14 members of the Iroquois delegation who are from the northern side of the U.S.-Canadian border who hold Haudenosaunee passports – but the passport dispute sparked a debate in Canada over First Nations rights.

“The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act specifies that Canadian citizens and registered Indians under the Indian Act have a right to enter Canada,” Immigration spokeswoman Karen Shadd said in a statement published in the National Post. “Furthermore, these persons are also exempt from the requirement to hold a document to enter Canada.”

According to Passport Canada, the Canadian passport issued by Ottawa is the only “official” document for travel abroad.

Gavin Taylor, a Native history professor at Concordia University in Montreal, told the Post that the Canadian government has avoided dealing fully with the Native mobility issue for centuries and is now facing the consequences.

“If they explicitly allow the Iroquois to travel on their own passport, it does open up a Pandora’s box of problems because other groups might also claim their own passports. ... and the Canadian government does claim to have jurisdiction over these people even if they deny that jurisdiction.”

Ironically, the first known person to travel on a Native passport was the great Cayuga Chief Deskaheh, a representative of the Iroquois people in Ontario.

In 1923, holding a passport issued by the Haudenosaunee authorities, he traveled to Geneva to the League of Nations headquarters seeking justice for his people against infringements by the Canadian government. His goal was to ask the league to admit the Federation of the Six Nations and to request compliance with a 1784 treaty between his people and King George III of Great Britain.

He spent a year trying to get an audience with league authorities, but was turned away.

Both the U.S. and British governments said that the Haudenosaunee passports no longer meet the security criteria that were toughened up after the 9/11 attacks. The passports lack the high-tech features associated with the beefed up documents, such as holograms, microchips and other machine-readable information.

But the U.S. rejection of the Haudenosaunee passports comes at an odd time, since the Haudenosaunee Documentation Committee has been working with the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for more than two years on designing and producing enhanced Haudenosaunee passports and “red cards” – identification cards from the individual Haudenosaunee nations, said the Onondaga Nation’s attorney Joe Heath.

“It’s involved dozens of meetings with the DHS and State Department, and several millions of dollars of investment. There’s a memorandum of agreement and it’s so close to being finalized that this (passport dispute) is really another level of irony here.”

The most obvious level of irony, however, is that the Iroquois people invented lacrosse – “the Creator’s game” – more than 900 years ago are being prevented from playing in the world championships.

The game has profound and multilayered spiritual, cultural, and physical meanings to the Haudenosaunee people.

“When you talk about lacrosse, you talk about the lifeblood of the Six Nations. The game is ingrained into our culture, our system and our lives,” said Oren Lyons, Onondaga Faithkeeper, former All-American lacrosse goalie, and the honorary chairman of the Iroquois Nationals.

The Iroquois’ absence will diminish the championships’ meaning, said Neil Goulding, spokesman for the Federation of International Lacrosse, which organizes and sponsors the world championships.

“It really is a shame, as we feel like we’re losing a connection with the sport’s heritage,” he said on AOL News. “The Iroquois had been due to open the tournament with an ancient blessing ceremony, where sacred tobacco is burnt and prayers are chanted. Now the games are just going to start with a few words from Manchester’s Lord Mayor.”