White House World Cup Chief Defends Visa Denials for Somali Referee and Iranian Staff

The head of the White House World Cup Task Force defended Tuesday’s decision to deny entry visas to a Somali referee and several members of Iran’s support staff.

“To this point, we’ve had 35 teams come into the United States,” said Andrew Giuliani, the task force’s executive director, during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“No players, no coaches have been denied,” Giuliani said. “There have been some officials that have been denied, and for good reason.”

He said officials were trying to balance open access for legitimate tournament participants with safeguards against anyone attempting to enter the country under the cover of the World Cup.

Giuliani, the son of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, was questioned specifically about the decision to block Somali referee Omar Artan from entering the United States.

– ‘For very good reason’ –

Artan, named men’s referee of the year in 2025 by the Confederation of African Football, was set to become the first Somali official to referee at a World Cup.

“While I can’t go into the details, what I can tell you at a high level is it was for a very good reason,” Giuliani said of Artan, who was turned away at Miami airport.

Somalia is among the countries included on a travel ban list introduced by President Donald Trump’s administration as part of a wider immigration crackdown.

Iran, scheduled to play all three group matches on U.S. soil, was forced to move its training base to Mexico because of the ongoing military conflict with the United States.

The Iranian football federation said Tuesday that its ticket allocation for supporters had been revoked and that some members of the team’s support staff had been denied visas.

Giuliani said “all the Iranian coaching staff is coming in,” but added that “some Iranian officials are not coming in — again for very good reason.”

He said he could not discuss specifics, but suggested that “there are some people that claim that they are coaches that may not be coaches.”

Giuliani said Trump wants to ensure a “level playing field” for all teams participating in the tournament while preventing anyone directly connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from entering the United States.

The White House envoy also said there were currently “no credible threats” to the tournament, but added that the intelligence community is “tripled down” and will continue monitoring the situation until the final goal is scored on July 19.

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