{"id":497099,"date":"2026-06-13T02:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T02:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497099\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T02:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T02:58:11","slug":"thomas-partey-out-of-ghanas-world-cup-opener-after-visa-application-to-canada-refused-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497099\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Partey out of Ghana\u2019s World Cup opener after visa application to Canada refused \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Thomas Partey has been denied entry to Canada and will not be available for Ghana\u2019s first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/world-cup\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/world-cup\/\">World Cup<\/a> game against Panama in Toronto on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The former Arsenal midfielder was charged by London\u2019s Metropolitan Police with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault in July 2025 and pleaded not guilty. Partey, who now plays for Spanish club Villarreal, was subsequently charged with two new counts of rape in February, to which he also pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 32-year-old was allowed to enter the United States with the rest of Ghana\u2019s squad on June 4th and has been in a training camp in Boston ahead of the World Cup. But in a statement on Friday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/fifa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/fifa\/\">Fifa<\/a> confirmed that Partey\u2019s visa application had been rejected by the Canadian government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFifa is not involved in the immigration processes of host countries, including the adjudication of visas. As with previous Fifa events, the host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and is admitted into the country,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The midfielder joined Arsenal from Atl\u00e9tico Madrid in 2020 in a transfer worth about \u00a345 million before he left the club in June last year. Ghana are due to face England in Boston in their second match of the tournament on June 23rd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Canada\u2019s immigration department said in a statement that while it cannot comment on specific cases without the signed consent of those concerned, staff apply the rules \u201cconsistently and without exception, regardless of nationality, profile, or role in the tournament\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The department added that officers are trained decision-makers who assess an individual\u2019s eligibility and admissibility in accordance with Canadian immigration laws. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Partey has been denied entry to Canada and will not be available for Ghana\u2019s first World Cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,4018],"class_list":["post-497099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}