{"id":732123,"date":"2026-06-12T15:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732123\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T15:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:42:10","slug":"palestinian-football-chief-says-us-denied-him-visa-to-attend-world-cup-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732123\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian football chief says US denied him visa to attend World Cup | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the Palestinian Football Association has said he is unable to travel to the US with other federation heads attending the 2026 Fifa World Cup<\/a> because he has not been issued a visa.<\/p>\n

Jibril Rajoub went to the opening match between Mexico and South Africa<\/a> in Mexico City on Thursday. But he is among several people accredited to attend the World Cup who have been denied visas or have yet to receive them from the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that it\u2019s fair to use or to abuse and deny the right of all footballers all over the world to attend,\u201d the veteran Palestinian political figure said.<\/p>\n

Fifa president Gianni Infantino (centre) attempted to orchestrate a handshake between Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub (right) and the Israeli delegate at the congress in May, but Rajoub refused. Photograph: Bob Frid\/EPA<\/p>\n

The Palestinian team did not qualify for the World Cup but Fifa<\/a> typically invites the heads of football associations from around the world to the event held every four years, which it frames as a celebration of global unity.<\/p>\n

Fifa\u2019s president, Gianni Infantino<\/a>, said last year: \u201cEveryone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the Fifa World Cup next year. We are working exactly for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US, however, has refused entry to delegates from several countries, including a referee from Somalia<\/a> and a photographer travelling with Iraq\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\"IsIs Trump about to ruin the World Cup? | Politics Weekly America<\/p>\n

Infantino said this week that Fifa had been trying to resolve visa issues but could not overrule the US government. \u201cWe need to respect that we are not the kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces,\u201d he told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The US state department had no immediate comment on Rajoub\u2019s visa, but last year it implemented new restrictions on Palestinian passport holders, including on anyone who had been employed by the Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n

It revoked a visa to allow Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to travel to the UN general assembly last September.<\/p>\n

Rajoub and other Palestinian football officials have long argued that Israel violates statutes by allowing teams from settlements in the occupied West Bank to play in Israel\u2019s national league. They have pushed Fifa to impose sanctions on Israel, also decrying restrictions on the movement of Palestinian players and how war in the Gaza Strip has damaged or destroyed 80% of sports facilities and killed at least 565 players there, according to the association.<\/p>\n

Last month, Rajoub refused to shake hands<\/a> with the head of Israel\u2019s football federation at Infantino\u2019s behest because he said the gesture would not heal wounds but instead whitewash Israel\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

Rajoub pointed out that when Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup, it did not implement comparable visa restrictions for people who were invited to the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of the Palestinian Football Association has said he is unable to travel to the US with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-732123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}