BUENOS AIRES, 4 August 2026 — Argentina’s 44-year wait to field a black player in the national squad has ended with the inclusion of teenager Stephen “Kiki” Ramos.
Ramos becomes the first black player to represent the national squad since goalkeeper Héctor Baley in 1982.
He is also the first Haiti-born player to don the Argentina jersey.
The 17-year-old made his debut when Argentina defeated Ecuador 2-1 in a friendly match at the end of July.
Ramos’s emergence has revived discussions regarding the history of the Afro-Argentine community, which is estimated to make up less than one per cent of the country’s population.
This situation has been influenced by several factors, including the massive influx of European immigrants at the end of the 19th century, wars, the Yellow Fever epidemic, and the removal of the Afro-descendant population category in censuses for over a century before it was reinstated in 2010.
Ramos was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 3 April 2009 and survived the 2010 Haiti earthquake while still an infant.
He was adopted by an Argentine couple at the age of nine months and was subsequently raised in Buenos Aires.
Ramos currently plays for the CA Vélez Sarsfield academy as a left winger and is also capable of playing on the right side.
Throughout the 2026 season, he scored 12 goals before receiving a call-up to join the Argentina Under-17 squad.
