So far at the 2026 FIFA Epstein Cup before a ball kicked:
- Senegal & Uzbekistan squads treated like criminals upon arrival given full cavity searches;
- Africa’s best referee sent back to Somalia despite having a diplomatic passport;
- Iraq team photographer sent back despite valid visa;
- AIPS (international sport journalist association) calling on FIFA to sort out unacceptable visa issues of African & Iranian journalists;
- 90% of Moroccan fans with tickets denied entry
- 14 members of Iran backroom staff denied visas
Not a word from Gianni ”today I feel black/gay/disabled etc” Infantino.
When one of the most respected referees in world football is refused entry by the host nation, because they don't like his home country, the correct response of the other referees should be to boycott the tournament unless he is allowed to do his job. Sadly, that won't happen.
@andrewrobs@dfkodsi So was CSI. And Law & Order. And all their spin-offs. It's like watching Murder She Wrote and hating on Jessica Fletcher for weeding out the red herrings before a vital clue gives her the answer. Should House have had more non-life-threatening mystery disease episodes?
Thanks for your critique, Janet. We actually tried a couple of episodes where House (Hugh Laurie) (please put the brackets in the right place) gets it right first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren’t happy. Then we tried some where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn’t happy.
One could apply your trenchant analysis to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the same chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself; Henry Moore, what??
The point is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you.
Nonetheless, I look forward to your first novel!
Karen Newton, 65, from Hertfordshire in England, left home in late July 2025 for the road trip of a lifetime through the United States with her husband Bill. Valid passports. Valid visas. Weeks on the road through California, Nevada, Wyoming and Montana. Then they tried to cross into Canada and things fell apart. Canadian officials said Bill didn’t have the right paperwork to bring the car across the border. When the couple turned back to the American side, U.S. border agents found that Bill’s visa had expired. 
Karen’s tourist visa was valid. Her British passport was valid. She has no criminal record. None of it mattered. She was handcuffed, shackled, and spent the night sleeping on the floor of a locked cell before being driven 12 hours through the night to an ICE detention centre. She and her husband spent the next six weeks there. 
She is now warning anyone planning to visit the United States that the situation is “totally out of control” and advises people not to go while Donald Trump is in office. 
A British grandmother. A valid visa. Six weeks in chains.
This is absurd. Putting them at a huge disadvantage. The US illegally attacked them, not the other way around. FIFA are such cowards remaining silent. https://t.co/y6J0b8fdy1
The visa dynamics for the World Cup are really confusing.
Some African journalists given single entry visas to the US meaning if their team travels to play in Canada they can't come back to the USA
Its rather absurd
@soka25east
@andysterias@Smuckerdoodle6@JeremyTColes@pardon_mi But ai can't have ideas. It doesn't even understand what planning a paper means. It's a probability engine. All its 'ideas' are simply a grammatical amalgamation of other people's claims, often used incorrectly. How will that tell you what you don't know you don't know?