{"id":732924,"date":"2026-06-13T00:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T00:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732924\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T00:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T00:35:09","slug":"palestine-football-chief-says-he-wasnt-granted-us-visa-to-attend-world-cup-world-cup-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732924\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine football chief says he wasn\u2019t granted US visa to attend World Cup | World Cup 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jibril Rajoub is in Mexico awaiting a US visa to attend the World Cup 2026.<\/p>\n

Published On 12 Jun 202612 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

The head of the Palestinian Football Association says he is waiting in Mexico City for permission to enter the United States to attend the FIFA World Cup<\/a> with other federation heads.<\/p>\n

Jibril Rajoub attended the opening match between Mexico and South Africa<\/a> on Thursday, but he has now joined several people accredited to attend the World Cup who have been denied visas or have yet to receive them from the US.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 2 itemsend of list<\/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 told The Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n

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

\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 FIFA President Gianni Infantino said last year.<\/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

Infantino said this week that FIFA had been trying to resolve visa issues but could not overrule the US government.<\/p>\n

\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 Department of State had no immediate comment on Rajoub\u2019s visa, but last year 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 United Nations 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.<\/p>\n

They have pushed FIFA to sanction Israel, highlighting restrictions on the movement of Palestinian players and how Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza has damaged or destroyed 80 percent of sports facilities and killed at least 565 players there, according to the association.<\/p>\n

Last month, Rajoub refused to shake hands 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":"Jibril Rajoub is in Mexico awaiting a US visa to attend the World Cup 2026. Published On 12…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,6897,36089,44,6899,84,588,85,1055,124617],"class_list":["post-732924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-politics","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732924","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=732924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}