Somali referee says U.S. denied entry, ending World Cup dream

By Matthew Mpoke BiggReporting from Nairobi, KenyaWednesday June 10, 2026

Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Somali referee said Tuesday that the most important dream of his professional career had been cut short after U.S. authorities refused him entry to the country, barring him from the World Cup in North America.

Omar Abdulkadir Artan was among 52 referees chosen for the tournament this summer. He was one of seven officials from Africa selected and would have become the first Somali referee to work a World Cup match.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the denial, Mr. Artan told The New York Times that taking part in a World Cup game would have meant far more than a personal milestone. For Somalis, he said, it would have stood as proof of what people from his country can accomplish despite years of instability and hardship.

“I am very, very disappointed,” Mr. Artan said in a telephone interview from Istanbul, where he had been flown after being refused entry. “I’m just simply a referee who’s trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup.”

Mr. Artan arrived at Miami International Airport on Saturday, five days before Thursday’s opening match, but border officials stopped him from entering the United States. He said he was pulled aside and questioned overnight in a small room.

“I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa,” Mr. Artan said, adding that he had presented FIFA documents and photographs showing more than a decade of work as a professional referee. He said officials also reviewed online material about his career. In 2025, the Confederation of African Football, which oversees the sport in Africa, named him referee of the year.

After 11 hours, he said, the interview ended. He was then moved to another holding cell, where he remained for several more hours before being sent on a flight back to Istanbul. Officials never told him why he had been turned away, he said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that such determinations are made individually, but it did not say why Mr. Artan had been denied entry.

“The traveler underwent additional inspection, a routine part of Customs and Border Protection’s inspection process when officers need to verify information or determine admissibility,” the statement said. “Following inspection, the traveler, a referee for the FIFA World Cup, was determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns and was denied entry.”

Mr. Artan said, “I think that they have a problem with my country,” and added that he planned to return to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, on Wednesday. He said he had spent four years preparing for the World Cup, including training courses with FIFA in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The decision by border officials has sparked criticism from leading soccer figures and prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. Andrew Giuliani, who heads the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026, defended the move and said there had been derogatory information about Mr. Artan.

“We also want to make sure that we are not going to allow a soccer tournament to be the opportunity for terrorists to potentially get in the country or anybody who is actually talking to them,” he told the British Broadcasting Corporation.

A review of the sanctions list on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control website shows that Mr. Artan’s name is similar to that of a man identified as connected to the Somali militant group Al Shabab and sanctioned by the U.S. government. The office is part of the Treasury Department.

That resemblance likely prompted extra questioning from border officials about possible links to Al Shabab, said Melissa Chavin, a London-based immigration lawyer who works with clients seeking to travel to the United States. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment

Mr. Artan told The Times that officials repeatedly asked whether he had ever met anyone from the militant group. He said he answered that he knew nothing about Al Shabab and was only a soccer referee trying to do his job.

The Trump administration has imposed strict travel and visa restrictions on Somalia, an East African nation, and it was not immediately clear whether FIFA had sought clearance for Mr. Artan’s entry into the United States.

FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the organization confirmed in a statement that Mr. Artan would not officiate at the World Cup.

“FIFA 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 changed at present,” the statement said.

It remained unclear why he was not considered for appointments in Mexico or Canada, the other host nations for the tournament.

Mr. Artan described his path to the United States, saying it began last week in Nairobi, where he waited for travel documents. After receiving them, he flew to Istanbul and then boarded a connecting flight to Miami for a pre-tournament FIFA referees’ meeting.

He said border officials asked why he had come to the United States and quizzed him about politics in Somalia, a country that has spent more than a decade trying to build lasting state institutions. Al Shabab controls parts of the country and has waged a long insurgency against the government.

Relations between Somalia and the United States have been strained in recent years.

In December, President Trump attacked Somali immigrants, calling them “garbage” during an outburst at the White House and saying Somalia was “not even a country.” At the same time, the Pentagon has been working with Somalia’s government on dozens of airstrikes against militant targets there.

Other teams at the World Cup have also encountered visa complications in their travels to the United States. Last week, Iran’s soccer team was granted visas after months of uncertainty tied to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. But more than a dozen members of the team’s support staff were denied entry.

Hussein Mohamed contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is the East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Nairobi, Kenya.