The United States has denied entry to soccer referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who had been expected to be the first Somali to \u200bofficiate at a match in the World Cup.<\/p>\n
A FIFA spokesperson said Artan would not \u200cbe able to train and officiate at the World Cup — the latest edition of which kicks off on Thursday — after he was not allowed to enter the United States over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Somalia’s government said it had unsuccessfully tried to \u200bnegotiate with the U.S. and FIFA so that Artan could enter the country and it \u200bwas saddened by what had happened.<\/p>\n
“His international achievements are a source of honour and \u2060pride for the Somali people,” Somalia’s sports ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n
FIFA SAYS NOT INVOLVED IN \u200bIMMIGRATION POLICIES<\/strong><\/p>\n A senior Somali official told Reuters that diplomatic efforts were continuing to try to get Artan into \u200bthe U.S. for the tournament, but declined to share further details.<\/p>\n A FIFA spokesperson said the organisation “is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications, and has been informed by authorities that Mr Artan’s status will not be \u200bchanged at present,”. Its website does not show what match Artan was due to officiate.<\/p>\n Artan said in \u200ba statement that despite the circumstances he was in a positive mood and focused on the next challenges of \u200chis refereeing \u2060career.<\/p>\n “I would like to thank FIFA and CAF (Confederation of African Football) for all their support and I promise to keep my refereeing levels up as I concentrate on the future,” he said.<\/p>\n US POLICIES RAISE CONCERNS AHEAD OF WORLD CUP<\/strong><\/p>\n Without naming him, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement \u200bthat a Somali national arrived \u200bat Miami International Airport \u2060from Istanbul on Saturday and was deemed inadmissible due to vetting concerns.<\/p>\n The agency did not elaborate on those concerns, but said the referee underwent routine \u200badditional inspection before being denied entry.<\/p>\n “Admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis \u200busing law \u2060enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection,” the CBP said.<\/p>\n The Trump administration’s strict immigration policies have been a point of\u00a0concern\u00a0ahead of the World Cup. Last year, Washington imposed a sweeping \u2060travel ban \u200bon citizens of 12 countries, including Somalia.<\/p>\n Artan, who was named \u200bCAF’s Best Male Referee for 2025, had a valid visa, according to media reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The United States has denied entry to soccer referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who had been expected to be the first Somali to \u200bofficiate at a match in the World Cup. A FIFA spokesperson said Artan would not \u200cbe able to train and officiate at the World Cup — the latest edition of which kicks off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,326],"tags":[5196,385],"class_list":["post-21078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-sport","tag-omar-abdulkadir-artan","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21080,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21078\/revisions\/21080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}