As the 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, prepares to kick off in 48 hours, a high-profile immigration incident has thrown the tournament into fresh controversy, raising urgent questions about U.S. border policy, FIFA’s leadership, and the politicization of global football.
Omar Artan, Somalia’s top-ranked international referee and one of 52 officials selected to officiate at this year’s tournament, arrived in Miami last week to join final pre-tournament preparations. Despite holding all required documentation, a valid visa, and a formal invitation from FIFA, Artan endured an 11-hour interrogation by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, was detained for several additional hours, and was ultimately forcibly placed on a return flight out of the country. He is now back in Mogadishu, denied the chance to make history as the first Somali referee to work at a men’s senior World Cup.
Artan’s resume, which earned him the coveted World Cup appointment, speaks to his standing as one of the game’s elite officials. Over the past 18 months, he has officiated high-profile matches including the 2025 African Champions League final – the first Somali to ever lead a continental championship final – three matches at the 2025 U-20 World Cup in Chile (including the tournament’s third-place playoff), and multiple group stage matches at back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations tournaments in 2024 and 2025. Speaking before his travel, Artan called his World Cup selection the pinnacle of his career, saying “Every referee’s ambition is to go to the World Cup. When you are selected, you feel that all your hard work was worth it. Years of effort finally made sense.”
The incident has validated long-held fears that U.S. immigration policy under the Trump administration would create discriminatory barriers for visitors from majority-Muslim and African nations ahead of the tournament. Piara Powar, executive director of anti-discrimination football advocacy group Fare, called Artan’s rejection an unprecedented farce. “It is pretty clear that the fears of an ideological and discriminatory visa policy from the US government is being realised,” Powar said. “Never have we seen the farce of an official Fifa referee being refused entry as he arrives for final preparations.”
Artan’s exclusion comes as no surprise to observers tracking the Trump administration’s tightening travel restrictions. In 2017, one of Trump’s first executive orders implemented a travel ban on foreign nationals from seven majority-Muslim nations, including Somalia. That ban was expanded in June 2025 to a full entry ban across all visa categories for 12 countries, which includes not just Somalia, but three World Cup participating nations: DR Congo, Iran, and Haiti. Just weeks before the tournament draw in December 2025, Trump made inflammatory remarks about Somali people, claiming the country “barely exists” and calling Somali immigrants “garbage” that should “go back to where they came from.”
The incident has also exposed a glaring contradiction in FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s approach to host nation compliance. When Indonesia’s Bali governor refused entry to the Israeli men’s U-20 national team ahead of the 2023 U-20 World Cup, FIFA stripped the country of hosting rights entirely, arguing that “any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup, need to have the access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup.” That same policy is not being applied to the U.S., despite multiple entry denials for World Cup participants and officials.
Infantino has cultivated a close political relationship with Trump over the past two years, culminating in the controversial decision to award Trump the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize during the 2026 World Cup draw in December. Critics say this alliance has left FIFA unwilling to push back against U.S. policy, even as it disrupts the core functioning of the tournament. When asked about Artan’s case, FIFA issued a neutral statement saying it “is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications.” That response has drawn outrage from football figures, including former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright, who wrote on Instagram: “Every few hours it’s another story, another story about fans denied, players denied, officials denied, journalists denied, now refs. This is a World Cup of chaos.”
This controversy is just the latest in a string of problems plaguing the build-up to the 2026 tournament, which was billed as a return to normalcy after the politically fraught 2018 World Cup in Russia and 2022 in Qatar. Issues including exorbitant ticket prices, a legal subpoena into FIFA’s ticket sales practices, widespread criticism of overpriced hotel accommodations and transport, and repeated entry denials for fans and officials have left the tournament facing more controversy than its two predecessors.
Beyond Artan’s case, broader concerns persist that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will conduct enforcement operations at or near tournament stadiums, chilling travel for international fans with uncertain immigration status. Fan groups have repeatedly criticized the U.S. for creating unnecessary barriers to entry, a sharp break from past host nation practices that prioritized easy access for traveling fans. Russia eliminated all visa requirements for 2018 World Cup visitors, relying instead on a simple fan ID system tied to match tickets. Qatar used a similar pre-screened Hayya card system that doubled as an entry permit and match access. In contrast, U.S. policy has left many international fans too frustrated to proceed with travel plans. “You’re supposed to be welcoming fans from around the world,” Thomas Concannon, leader of the FSA’s England supporters group, told BBC Sport earlier this year. “And I think at this stage, fans couldn’t feel less welcome.”
The next major test of U.S. policy will come this weekend, when the Iranian national team is scheduled to travel to the U.S. for its first group stage match. Iranian officials have already confirmed that U.S. authorities have denied visas to 16 key backroom staff members, and have only permitted the playing squad to enter the country via cross-border travel from Tijuana, Mexico, with a requirement to depart within 24 hours of each match. U.S. authorities have also revoked all pre-allocated group stage tickets for Iranian fans, a decision that has drawn widespread condemnation. This marks the first time in World Cup history that the host nation is actively engaged in military conflict with a participating nation, after the U.S. joined Israel in large-scale military strikes on Iran earlier this year.
As the tournament prepares to kick off, Powar says Artan’s case raises a fundamental question about who is actually in charge of the 2026 World Cup. “Never have we seen so many World Cup coaches, team operations, fans and even senior administrators within Fifa member associations, subject to so much interrogation and exclusion,” he said. “The disruption is such that one has to ask who is running the World Cup. Is it Fifa or is it the US government with its racially charged immigration policies?” Right now, with one of FIFA’s selected referees barred from entering the country, the answer seems clear: U.S. immigration policy is calling the shots.