Somalia is not competing at the World Cup, but from the scenes at Mogadishu’s airport Wednesday, you’d think the country had won the trophy.
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A crowd of supporters, blue-bereted police and journalists jostled to get close to the plane that had just taxied to the terminal ramp.
Stepping off the airliner was not a victorious soccer team, however, but rather the man who has become an emblem of what critics say are America’s strict anti-immigration policies colliding with the world’s biggest sporting event.
Omar Artan, 34, was meant to be the first Somali referee to officiate at a World Cup, selected for the tournament starting Thursday in the United States, Canada and Mexico. But after landing Saturday in Miami, where the referees’ training base is, he was detained and questioned for 11 hours, he says, before being sent back home.
He is not an isolated case: 15 Iranian officials have also been denied entry, according to Iranian state media, as has the official Iraqi team photographer. An Iraqi player, Aymen Hussein, and other teams say they have been subjected to intensive and sometimes invasive searches at the border.
The U.S. government gave assurances to FIFA years ahead of the soccer tournament that “eligible athletes, officials and fans from all countries around the world” would be able to attend. But preparations for the tournament faced uncertainty due to travel bans and restrictions imposed under President Donald Trump that prevent or severely limit entry to the U.S. for citizens of 39 countries.
Other World Cup tournaments were far from flawless, from the authoritarianism of Russia in 2018 and the human rights concerns of Qatar in 2022, right back to the tournaments held under Mussolini’s Italy in 1934 and Argentina’s junta in 1978. But the spectacle of refusing entry to an accredited referee is unprecedented in the modern era, triggering widespread criticism domestically and internationally.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it “terribly backward” for the U.S. to be “flippantly barring officials from entering the country to do their jobs.”
Retired Arsenal and England forward Ian Wright said in a video post that the event was becoming the “World Cup of chaos,” asking: “Is this how the hosts behave really for the greatest game, the greatest tournament in the world?”
Andrew Giuliani, the head of the White House World Cup task force, said Tuesday that Artan was denied entry for a “very good reason” but declined to go into detail. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said the denial was due to “vetting concerns” without further clarification.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Trump administration official told NBC News that Artan was refused for reasons including “association with suspected members of terror organizations.” The Trump administration official declined to provide evidence or details on the nature of the alleged association.
Artan told The New York Times he was questioned repeatedly about Somalia’s al-Shabab, saying he did not know anything about the militant group.
Somalia has rallied around Artan. The Somali Sports Ministry expressed “deep regret” over his treatment and the Somali Football Federation expressed its full support for him, though it stressed that “it would be inappropriate to speculate or draw conclusions until all relevant facts have been clearly established.”
Meanwhile, CBP said that two members of the Iraqi traveling party were given “additional inspection, a routine part of its inspection process when officers need to verify information or determine admissibility.”
While one of these people, whom the CBP did not name as Hussein, was given entry to the U.S., the other was “determined to be inadmissible and was denied entry due to vetting concerns,” the agency said in a statement.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in an email that Trump was focused on ensuring the World Cup is an “incredible experience for all fans and visitors” and also “the safest and most secure in history – and no amount of ridiculous scare tactics driven by liberal activist groups and the left-wing media will change that.”
FIFA did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
“Performative searches” of players and officials are “far outside the norm” for the tournament, according to Jules Boykoff, a politics professor at Pacific University in Oregon. “And they slice mightily against the spirit of hosting the World Cup.”
It’s not just players and officials. Some fans feel that — faced with the Trump administration’s hard-line border controls — they are simply unwilling to risk attending matches in the U.S. this year.
Many were already put off by steep prices for tickets and accommodation that will make this easily the most expensive World Cup in history for fans.
“There’s a moral obligation to let people enter the country: that’s the whole point of the World Cup, that’s the universality of it,” said Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, a Germany-based organization that advocates for soccer fans worldwide. “Now feels like the White House and FIFA have taken the world out of the World Cup.”
Seventy-eight of the tournament’s 104 matches will be held on U.S. soil, with Canada and Mexico hosting 13 each.
Mexico City airport transforms ahead of World Cup
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Artan said in a statement Tuesday that “despite the circumstances, I am in a positive mood and I am focused on the next challenges in my refereeing career.”
Visa issues at the tournament have been feared as a potential flashpoint ever since Trump won a second term and resurrected his travel ban policy. World Cup participants Haiti and Iran are among those usually subject to a full travel ban under the policy, while Ivory Coast and Senegal are subject to partial bans.
While players from those countries have largely been allowed into the U.S. for the tournament, the situation for fans has been less clear. Iran says its entire fan allocation of tickets has been revoked ahead of the tournament, while Ivory Coast’s fan association told the BBC it would not send anyone to the tournament.
The Trump administration says the restrictions are necessary to prevent people from entering the U.S. from countries with looser internal vetting processes. Human rights watchdog Amnesty International says the policy is “discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel.”
During the past two iterations of the World Cup, in Qatar and Russia, visa requirements for ticketholders were waived or dramatically streamlined.
But for the U.S. part of this year’s competition, even fans not from blacklisted countries have been left to navigate an obstacle course of high application fees and refusal rates. The international soccer governing body did introduce a “FIFA Pass” that gives ticket-holders priority appointments — but critics say it does not improve the chances of success.
“What the United States is doing here is setting a very bad precedent for these international events going forward,” said Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at Third Way, a center-left think tank based in Washington, D.C. “I’m hoping that there’s enough backlash to help encourage nations to be more welcoming when they’re hosting these international events in the future.”
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