{"id":36552,"date":"2026-06-09T08:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=36552"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:23:22","slug":"somali-soccer-referee-denied-us-entry-will-miss-world-cup-debut","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/somali-soccer-referee-denied-us-entry-will-miss-world-cup-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali soccer referee denied US entry, will miss World Cup debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The United States (US) denied entry over the weekend to soccer referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who had been expected to be \u200bthe first Somali to officiate at a World Cup match.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">An International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) Spokesperson Mattias Grafstr\u00f6m \u200csaid on Monday that Artan will not be able to train and officiate at the World Cup which kicks off on Thursday after he was not allowed to enter the US.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;FIFA is \u200bnot involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications, and has \u200bbeen informed by authorities that Artan&#8217;s status will not be changed \u2060at present,&#8221; Grafstr\u00f6m \u200csaid.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Artan said in a statement that despite the circumstances \u200bhe was in a positive mood and focused on the next challenges of his refereeing \u200bcareer.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;I would like to thank FIFA and Confederation of African Football for all their support, and I promise to keep my refereeing levels up as I concentrate on the future,&#8221; he said.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;I want to thank the \u200bfootball family for their messages and wish my colleagues all the best success \u200bduring the World Cup, and I look forward to joining them again in future competitions.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The US Customs \u200cand \u2060Border Protection, without naming him, said in a statement that a Somali national arrived at Miami International Airport from Istanbul on Saturday and was deemed inadmissible due to vetting concerns.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The agency did not elaborate on those concerns, but said the referee underwent routine \u200badditional inspection before \u200bbeing denied entry.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30393,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-36552","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"International Federation of Association Football","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36553,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36552\/revisions\/36553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}