{"id":638106,"date":"2026-06-14T10:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T10:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/638106\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T10:51:08","slug":"world-cup-2026-fifa-to-pay-somali-referee-full-tournament-fee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/638106\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Fifa to pay Somali referee full tournament fee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somali referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the United States to officiate at the World Cup, will still receive his full tournament fee.<\/p>\n

Artan was interrogated for 11 hours by US immigration authorities at Miami International Airport on Monday before being told he would not be allowed into the country<\/a> after his diplomatic passport and single entry US visa were rejected.<\/p>\n

A US government official said Artan had not been allowed to enter the country because of an alleged “association with suspected members of terror organisations”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Artan said he had been questioned by border officials over his links to Somali militant group Al Shabab and had told them he knew nothing about the organisation.<\/p>\n

“I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa,” said Artan.<\/p>\n

“I’m just simply a referee who’s trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup.”<\/p>\n

After being put back on a plane to Turkey, Artan received assistance from Fifa officials in Istanbul before boarding a flight to the Somali capital Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

Sources told BBC Sport that even though Artan will take no part in the World Cup, Fifa has committed to paying his salary.<\/p>\n

Referees do not know the actual fee they will receive for officiating at the World Cup, which is paid after the tournament is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somali referee Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the United States to officiate at the World Cup,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-638106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}