A Seattle youth-soccer nonprofit has returned 20 free tickets to a World Cup round of 16 match next month after the barring of Somali referee Omar Artan from the United States. African Youth Sports Academy said the tickets were meant for children in its program, many of whom come from low-income, immigrant families.
Ali Abdulla said he was over the moon when he learned the group would receive the tickets, a windfall when seats for the match were hovering around $1,000. The giveaway had been set up to let children from the academy take part in a tournament moment that would otherwise have been far out of reach for them.
The tickets had been awarded before the nonprofit decided to send them back, and the timing made the move feel bigger than a local gesture. The group was preparing to share them with children who played in an academy soccer competition in Seattle on Saturday, June 6, 2026, to help determine who would go, but the plan changed after Artan, who was denied entry to the United States, arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Wednesday, June 10, 2026.
That left the academy in an awkward position: a gift tied to access and inclusion was returned in protest of exclusion. Abdulla has said many of the children in the nonprofit come from immigrant families, which made the tickets especially meaningful, but the organization chose not to move ahead with the distribution once Artan’s case became public.
What happens to the 20 tickets now has not been disclosed. The answer matters because the match is next month in Seattle, and the children the academy hoped to take were counting on a rare chance to see the tournament in person.
