{"id":415138,"date":"2026-06-09T07:39:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/?p=415138"},"modified":"2026-06-09T07:39:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T07:39:36","slug":"africas-top-ref-refused-entry-to-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/2026\/06\/09\/africas-top-ref-refused-entry-to-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa&#8217;s top ref refused entry to USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Africa&#8217;s top referee has been refused entry to the United States after he arrived to work at the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Omar Artan&nbsp;<\/strong>was set to become the first referee from Somalia at a World Cup but he was forced to fly back to Istanbul after he was turned back at Miami International Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artan believed he had valid visa to work in the US even though Somalia are one of the countries on the US travel ban list.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Artan was voted the Confederation of African Football&#8217;s 2025 referee of the year and he has been a referee since 2018. He was due to be one of the 170 officials in working at the World Cup.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Somalia government response from Sports Ministry adviser Ciise Aden Abshir to AFP: &#8220;Omar is among Africa&#8217;s most respected referees and deserves the support of the entire football community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Denying him entry and preventing him officiating harms not only him personally but also undermines football&#8217;s commitment to fairness, merit and the spirit of fair play.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FIFA have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa&#8217;s top referee has been refused entry to the United States after he arrived to work at the World Cup. Omar Artan&nbsp;was set to become the first referee from Somalia at a World Cup but he was forced to fly back to Istanbul after he was turned back at Miami International Airport. Artan believed he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415139,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415138\/revisions\/415139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}