{"id":731524,"date":"2026-06-12T07:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/731524\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T07:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:43:09","slug":"somali-referee-barred-from-us-for-world-cup-is-handed-super-cup-final-by-uefa-referees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/731524\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali referee barred from US for World Cup is handed Super Cup final by Uefa | Referees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Omar Artan, the Somali referee prevented from officiating at the World Cup<\/a>, will take charge of the Super Cup in August, Uefa has announced.<\/p>\n

Artan found himself at the centre of controversy after being denied entry to the US, with the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, suggesting he was powerless to overrule<\/a> Donald Trump\u2019s administration. Somalia is one of 12 countries on a travel ban list<\/a> introduced by the US president last year.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old Artan, considered one of Africa\u2019s best referees, was refused entry at Miami international airport despite apparently having a valid travel visa.<\/p>\n

Somali officials called for the football world to rally in support and Uefa<\/a> has stepped in to reward Artan with the task of officiating the Super Cup fixture between Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Vila in Salzburg on 12 August.<\/p>\n

Uefa, European football\u2019s governing body, said discussions with the Confederation of Africane Football (Caf) led to the appointment for the high-profile game.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is made to connect people, and Uefa wants to show its respect to Omar and his outstanding officiating skills, which had earned him such a prestigious nomination,\u201d said Uefa\u2019s president, Aleksander Ceferin. \u201cI am grateful to my friend Caf president Patrice Motsepe for supporting enthusiastically our initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motsepe said Artan had made Africa \u201cextremely proud\u201d, adding: \u201cThis is a great honour for Omar Artan and for African referees and is also an excellent example of football, bringing together and uniting people from Africa and Europe and worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday Artan was given a hero\u2019s welcome<\/a> in Somalia\u2019s capital, Mogadishu, where thousands of locals greeted the referee on his return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Omar Artan, the Somali referee prevented from officiating at the World Cup, will take charge of the Super…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-731524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}