World Cup Visa Controversy: Security vs. Fair Play

The head of the White House Task Force for the World Cup has staunchly defended the decision to deny entry to a Somali referee and several members of Iran’s support staff, insisting security concerns must trump the optics of inclusivity at this summer’s tournament.

Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the task force and son of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, said the United States had welcomed the overwhelming majority of World Cup delegations without incident.

“To this point we've had 35 teams that have come into the United States,” Giuliani said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington. “No players, no coaches have been denied. There have been some officials that have been denied, and for good reason.”

The most high-profile of those is Somali referee Omar Artan, who was stopped at Miami airport and turned back. A US State Department official said Artan was “associated with suspected members of terrorist organisations,” a designation that, under US law, “mak[es] the traveler ineligible for admission to the United States.”

Artan’s case cuts deep in Somali football. In 2025, the Confederation of African Football named him men’s referee of the year. Had he taken the field this summer, he would have become the first Somali to officiate at a World Cup. Instead, television pictures have shown him returning home, thanking FIFA for its support but shut out of the biggest stage.

Giuliani framed the decision as part of a broader security posture around the tournament.

“We're striking that balance between making sure that any bad actors that… try to come into the country under the guise of the World Cup will not get access to the United States,” he said.

Somalia sits on a US travel ban list introduced under President Donald Trump as part of a wider immigration crackdown. That policy backdrop has sharpened the debate: is this a targeted security decision, or another flashpoint in a long-running political fight over who gets to cross America’s borders?

Iran have found themselves in the middle of that storm as well.

The team will play all three of their group matches on American soil, yet their World Cup preparations have already been pushed across the border. Because of the ongoing military conflict with the United States, Iran were forced to base their training camp in Mexico rather than inside the host nation.

The Iranian football federation says its ticket allocation for supporters has been revoked. Some members of the team’s support staff have also been denied visas, further isolating the squad from its travelling fan base and usual backroom network.

Giuliani drew a clear line between players and coaches on one side, and certain officials on the other.

“All the Iranian coaching staff is coming in,” he said, before adding that “some Iranian officials… are not coming in – again for very good reason.”

Pressed on what those reasons were, he refused to spell them out. “I can't get into the particulars,” he said, hinting instead at suspicions around the true roles of some applicants. “There are some people that claim that they are coaches that may not be coaches.”

Behind that guarded language lies Washington’s long-standing concern over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Giuliani said Trump wants to guarantee a “level playing field” for every team at the World Cup, while at the same time ensuring that “people that are directly working, let's say, with the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) have no ability to access the United States of America.”

Security agencies, he stressed, are on high alert. Giuliani said there are currently “no credible threats” to the tournament, but described an intelligence community that has “tripled down” on monitoring and assessment “between now and whenever the final goal is scored on July 19.”

So the World Cup will go ahead in the United States under a tight, unapologetic security lens: players and coaches waved through, some officials stopped at the border, and a Somali referee’s dream ending not in a tunnel walk at a packed stadium, but at an airport gate.