{"id":3294,"date":"2026-06-14T22:59:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3294"},"modified":"2026-06-14T22:59:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:59:51","slug":"world-cup-2026-fifa-to-pay-somali-referee-full-tournament-fee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3294","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Fifa to pay Somali referee full tournament fee"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Somali referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the United States to officiate at the World Cup, will still receive his full tournament fee.<\/b><\/p>\n

Artan was interrogated for 11 hours by US immigration authorities at Miami International Airport on Monday before being told he would not be allowed into the country<\/a> after his diplomatic passport and single entry US visa were rejected.<\/p>\n

A US government official said Artan had not been allowed to enter the country because of an alleged “association with suspected members of terror organisations”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Artan said he had been questioned by border officials over his links to Somali militant group Al Shabab and had told them he knew nothing about the organisation.<\/p>\n

“I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa,” said Artan.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

After being put back on a plane to Turkey, Artan received assistance from Fifa officials in Istanbul before boarding a flight to the Somali capital Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

Sources told BBC Sport that even though Artan will take no part in the World Cup, Fifa has committed to paying his salary.<\/p>\n

Referees do not know the actual fee they will receive for officiating at the World Cup, which is paid after the tournament is over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somali referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the United States to officiate at the World Cup, will still…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}