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A FIFA referee, named the 2025 African Referee of the Year, designated for the World Cup, with diplomatic documents and a diplomatic visa, was turned away at Miami airport, interrogated for eleven hours, held in a cell, and sent back without a clear explanation.
His name is Omar Artan, he's Somali, and he would have been the first Somali citizen to referee a World Cup match.
The worst thing is that all this is happening on the eve of the biggest, richest, most global World Cup ever.
A tournament that boasts about inclusion, diversity, openness, and brotherhood among peoples. But then all it takes is a Somali passport to transform a sporting dream into eleven hours of interrogation and humiliation.
In fact, Artan hasn't been charged with anything specific; his problem is his nationality.
FIFA washes its hands of the matter: it says the host country manages immigration, but Infantino playing Pontius Pilate is simply laughable because Infantino is complicit.
If you organize a World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, you must ensure that athletes, coaches, referees, and delegations can participate.
Otherwise, you're not really organizing a World Cup. You're organizing a global competition with selective entry, where some are welcome and others must hope not to be treated as suspects simply because of their passport nationality.
It happened to Fabio Cannavaro and the entire Uzbekistan team, searched with metal detectors and drug-sniffing dogs. But there are many cases of senseless checks on staff and players.
Omar Artan said that refereeing at the World Cup was the greatest dream of his life.
That dream was taken away from him at the border, after eleven hours in a cell as if he were a criminal.
And it's a huge shame.
Every World Cup referee should be asking themselves one question:
If we won't stand up for one of our own when he's refused entry, what exactly do we stand for?
Collectively, referees could bring the World Cup to a halt tomorrow. Instead, silence.
Eternal shame on them.