Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the United States for the World Cup despite holding a valid visa and diplomatic passport, after an 11-hour immigration interview at Miami International Airport.

Artan was set to be the first Somali to officiate at a World Cup finals. But on Monday, FIFA dropped him from the list of officials after US authorities refused him entry. No official reason has been given, but Somalia is on a travel ban list introduced by the Trump administration.

“I am very, very disappointed,” Artan told the New York Times. “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.”

After the interview, Artan was taken to a holding cell for several hours, then put on a flight back to Istanbul, Turkey. He had been travelling with a diplomatic passport issued specifically to ease his travel after earlier visa difficulties, according to a Somali embassy official in Nairobi.

FIFA said in a statement: “FIFA can confirm that match official Omar Abdulkadir Artan will be unable to train and officiate at the FIFA World Cup 2026 after he was denied entry into the United States. FIFA is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications, and has been informed by authorities that Mr Artan’s status will not be changed at present.”

Andrew Giuliani, who leads the White House Task Force on the World Cup, told the BBC: “While I can’t go into the derog [derogatory information] on that, I can tell you it was the right decision by customs and border patrol, and I support that decision.”

Artan can’t referee matches in Canada or Mexico because all on-pitch officials must stay at a training hub in Miami, set up by referees’ chief Pierluigi Collina. The hub is for training, preparation, and security.

In December, Trump told reporters he doesn’t want Somali immigrants in the US and they should “go back to where they came from”. Artan said: “I think that they have a problem with my country.”

The World Cup runs from 11 June to 19 July. Artan, a FIFA referee since 2018, has officiated at the Africa Cup of Nations. He’s an official in the Somali National League.

His plight is the latest in a series of problems. Iran’s football federation said on Tuesday that their fan ticket allocation for the group stage was revoked. Pundit and former England striker Ian Wright called the tournament a “World Cup of chaos”, saying: “Every few hours, it’s another story about fans denied, player denied, officials denied, journalists denied, now refs. … Is this the spirit of football, really?”