Somali referee Omar Artan has been denied entry to the United States and will not work at the FIFA World Cup 2026, ending his chance to become the first person from Somalia to officiate at the tournament. FIFA said on Monday that he will be unable to train and officiate at the event after being informed by authorities that his status “will not be changed at present.”
The decision matters now because the World Cup in 2026 is still taking shape, and officials are being selected for a six-week tournament that will feature a record 104 matches. Artan had been set to be one of 170 referees, assistant referees and video assistant referees, a rare assignment for a man who became a FIFA referee in 2018 and was named Africa’s best referee last year.
Artan was refused entry at Miami international airport this past weekend, despite allegedly holding a valid travel visa. He is understood to be in Istanbul, where he has been based in recent months. The gap between a visa and actual entry sits at the center of the case: FIFA said it is not involved in host-country immigration decisions and that a host government ultimately decides who receives a visa and who is admitted.
For Somali football officials, the fallout goes beyond one lost assignment. Representatives of the Somali government said the decision had “undermined football’s commitment to fair play,” while Ciise Aden Abshir said Artan is among Africa’s most respected referees and deserves the support of the entire football community. He added that denying him entry and preventing him from officiating scheduled matches harms him personally and undermines football’s commitment to fairness, merit and the spirit of fair play.
Artan’s exclusion also lands in a wider pattern of travel problems around the tournament. Somalia is one of several countries under a broad travel ban imposed by the Trump administration, and Iranian players and officials have already had problems reaching the United States for World Cup preparations. The Iranian training base was moved from the US to Mexico, and this week Iranian officials said support staff had been denied visas at the last minute, a claim the US State Department disputed.
The immediate question is whether Artan’s case changes at all before the tournament begins. For now, FIFA says it does not. That leaves one of Africa’s most respected referees outside the World Cup he was supposed to help run, and it leaves Somalia with another stark reminder of how one border decision can reach far beyond sport. For more on the country’s wider crisis, see Somalia enfrenta un Fallout de hambre que amenaza a 6 millones de personas —
