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On his trip to the United States he felt like his country’s ambassador to the whole world. After all, he was going to be the first Somali, regardless of whether he was a factor, coach, footballer or referee, who would be “present” at a World Cup.
It was going to happen, because it won’t happen. Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who last year was awarded by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) as the best referee of the “Black Continent”, has been deported by the American authorities.
After being interrogated for eleven (!) hours at the Miami airport by customs officials, he was put in a detention center and then flown back to Istanbulwhere he had stopped to catch the plane to the United States.
They asked him why he traveled to the USA and, although he showed them official FIFA documents and photos from his refereeing career, they insisted on asking him about Somalia’s politics and the terrorist and paramilitary organization al-Shabaabwhich is associated with Jihad.
“I think they have a problem with my country,” said Artan, who was never told the reason for the expulsion, although an official in Donald Trump’s administration, who preferred to remain anonymous, said information linking the referee to possible members of terrorist organizations had been found.
Andrew Giuliani, director of the White House World Cup task force, in turn argued that there was “a good reason” why the arbitrator was not allowed to enter in the country, but did not want to give details.
The main reason, obviously, is that Somalia is on the Trump administration’s “blacklist” of unwanted countries for security reasons, which has cast a heavy shadow over the 23rd World Cup before it has even started.
“Welcome to the USA” ironically writes on its front page today, Wednesday (10/06), the French newspaper “L’ Equipe”, referring to Artand’s expulsion and showing Trump holding the World Cup trophy in one hand and a puppet in the form of FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the other.
Of the man who last December awarded the first FIFA Peace Prize to Trump for stopping eight wars (at least as he claims), rendering “justice” because the American president did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Infantino, like another Pontius Pilate, washed his hands (also) of the Artan case, with FIFA officially claiming that it cannot intervene in this particular, shameful incident, because above the organization is always the security of the host country.
Trump, who shortly after taking office called Somali immigrants “the worst criminals”, sees the World Cup as a “necessary evil”, having never liked soccer, as they insist soccer is called in the United States.
He knows that the economic impact will be very favorable for the countrybut at the same time his government does not hesitate, at least according to relevant complaints, to recall tickets that had been sold to Iraniansin order to support their national team.
Iran, because of the war between the two countries, is unwelcome in the United States, although Infantino insisted at the same time that “the World Cup will unite the whole world.”
The Iran Football Federation was essentially forced to change the training center-base of the national team and from Tucson, Arizona moved to Tijuana, Mexico.
The Iranians will have a one-day entry visa (!) to set foot on US soil for the games against New Zealand (6/15), Belgium (6/21) and Egypt (6/26)having to travel the same day, in the morning to Inglewood and Seattle, returning immediately after the games.
Players and technical team got visas with a thousand and one, but not the other 13 members of the delegation, including the president of the federation Mehdi Taj, whom the Americans accuse of having a relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the vice president Mehdi Mohammad Nabi and the general secretary Hedayat Mobeini.
All this treatment has dogged the Iranian soccer players, who landed in Mexico wearing on their jackets a pin that read #168, in memory of the 168 children killed on February 28thwhen their school in Minab was attacked by three American Tomahawk missiles.
It seems unlikely to be allowed entry into the US with that pinin an incredibly toxic atmosphere that leaves aside the festive atmosphere that traditionally accompanied this event.
At the same time, Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein, despite losing his father in an Al-Qaeda attack and his brother being kidnapped by ISIS and his (black) fate unknown, was interrogated for seven hours at Chicago airport before being allowed entry, while Iraqi photographer and social media manager Talal Salah was interrogated for ten hours and then deported.
Unbelievable suffering suffered by the missions of Senegal and Uzbekistanwith long hours of checks even for drugs (!), while more and more sports fans are unable to enter the country, even though they have paid exorbitant amounts for flights, accommodation and match tickets.
The World Cup in the dark years of Donald Trump is even starting to evoke nostalgia for the four-year-old event in Qatar, which received so much (fair) criticism before it even started…
