A US official has confirmed that Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the United States ahead of the 2026 World Cup because of his “association with suspected members of terror organisations,” escalating a row that has thrown Fifa’s vetting procedures into sharp relief just weeks before the tournament’s opening match at SoFi Stadium on 11 June.
Artan, 38, was one of 117 match officials selected by Fifa to work the expanded 48-team finals across the United States, Canada and Mexico. He was turned back at Los Angeles International Airport on 2 June after a secondary screening that lasted more than six hours, according to two sources briefed on the incident. The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, said the decision was taken by the Department of Homeland Security and was “not a clerical error, not a misidentification, and not subject to appeal within the tournament window.”
What the US official said
The official’s statement is the first on-record confirmation of the grounds for Artan’s exclusion. Until Tuesday, both Fifa and the US State Department had declined to comment beyond confirming that “a small number” of accredited personnel had encountered entry issues. Fifa president Gianni Infantino had previously described the case as “a matter we are working through with our American partners” during a media briefing in Zurich on 5 June.
According to the US source, Artan’s name was flagged through an inter-agency database that pools intelligence from the FBI, the CIA and partner services in the Horn of Africa. The official stressed that the designation referred to “association” rather than membership or direct activity, and did not specify which group or groups were involved. Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked Somali militant organisation, has carried out attacks on football venues in Mogadishu as recently as 2024, when a bomb at the Banadir Stadium killed nine people.
Artan has refereed in the Somali Premier League since 2012 and joined the Fifa international list in 2019. He took charge of qualifiers in this World Cup cycle including Cameroon against Cape Verde in March 2025 and Algeria against Mozambique in November. The Somali Football Federation issued a statement on Monday “categorically rejecting” any suggestion of extremist links and calling the US decision “an injustice to a respected official and to African football.”
Fifa’s vetting under scrutiny
The case has forced an uncomfortable question into the open: how a referee already cleared by Fifa’s integrity unit can be deemed a security risk by the host nation. Fifa requires all match officials to pass background checks conducted by its security division and by the relevant confederation, in this case the Confederation of African Football. Those checks, however, do not draw on classified intelligence held by host-country agencies.
Former Fifa head of security Ralf Mutschke told the BBC the gap was “structural and entirely predictable.” He said: “Fifa cannot see what the FBI sees, and the FBI is not going to share raw intelligence with a sports body in Switzerland. The only way to close that gap is for host nations to vet every accredited person directly, months in advance, which neither the United States nor Fifa was willing to do at the necessary scale.”
The 2026 tournament is the largest in history, with 104 matches across 16 host cities and approximately 48,000 accredited personnel, including officials, broadcasters, security and Fifa staff. US Customs and Border Protection has said it will not disclose how many accreditation holders have been refused entry, but Concacaf sources put the figure in the “low double digits” as of last week.
What happens next
Artan has been replaced on the referee roster by Egyptian official Mahmoud al-Banna, who took charge of the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations final between Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Fifa confirmed the change on Tuesday evening but offered no further comment on the underlying case.
The implications stretch beyond one official. Several issues now sit on Infantino’s desk before kick-off:
- Whether Fifa will commission an independent review of its vetting protocols before the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil
- Whether host-nation security agencies will be granted formal access to Fifa’s accreditation pipeline for the 2030 centenary tournament across Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay
- Whether Artan, who maintains his innocence, has any legal recourse against the US designation, which carries no judicial review mechanism
For now, the tournament will proceed without him. But the precedent — a Fifa-cleared official barred by the host government on intelligence grounds, with no avenue of appeal — is one that World Cup organisers in 2030 and 2034 will be unable to ignore.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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