FIFA 2026 World Cup referee, Omar Artan of Somalia was denied entry into the United States for the tournament owing to his alleged association with suspected members of terror organisations, CNN has reported.
The global football tournament opens on Thursday at Estadio Banorte in Mexico City with the host nation facing South Africa in Matchday 1. The United States and Canada are the other co-hosts of the competition, which ends on 19 July.
CNN said it was told by an official of President Donald Trump’s administration that the vetting uncovered ‘derogatory information’.
The report said that the Trump official ‘did not provide further details on the alleged association with terror organisations’.
The 34-year-old, who the current Africa’s referee of the year, was set to be the first Somali to referee at a FIFA World Cup finals but was denied entry at Miami International Airport on Monday despite holding a diplomatic passport and a single entry US visa.
Artan, meanwhile, returned to a hero’s welcome in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and vowed to take part in the next tournament in Morocco, Portugal and Spain in 2030.
More than 100 supporters lined up outside the VIP section of Mogadishu’s main airport, waving national flags as Artan disembarked from a Turkish Airlines flight to cheers.
‘I will be at the next World Cup and will continue to make Somalia proud … Despite what has happened to me, I am not discouraged’, Artan told journalists.
Somalia is among 39 countries on which the US has imposed strict immigration measures and among a smaller group of countries with a complete US entry ban.
In the country, the Al-Shabaab militia has been fighting the government for many years in some parts of the country and is rated a terrorist organisation.
Artan arrived in the US at Miami Airport with valid travel documents but was then questioned for several hours by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. The CBP then denied him entry and deported him to Istanbul, from where he had arrived.
Speaking only of a World Cup referee from Somalia without naming him, the CBP said that he was ‘determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns and was denied entry’.
Artam is one of seven African referees for the tournament.
He told The New York Times that he was interviewed for 11 hours and then detained before being deported.
‘I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa’, Artan said.
Somalia’s sports ministry said the referee was denied entry to the US without a valid reason and was in contact with the world governing body FIFA, which, for its part, has dropped Artam from the referees list and said it had no say in immigration matters.
‘In line with previous FIFA events, a host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and who is admitted into their country’, the world football governing body said.
Artan’s rejection has sparked outrage at home.
‘They wronged him in a way that hurts everybody that is concerned about humanity’, Mohamed Said, a Mogadishu government official, said at the airport.
