Afrasianet - A fan of the Iraqi national team bought tickets for two matches of his national team in the United States, and when he sought a visa, he discovered that the United States had suspended its consular services there due to "security concerns," and when he traveled to Jordan and got an appointment at the U.S. embassy in Amman, he was told that the consulate could not issue a visa.
The tickets cost him about $1,800 and finally dissuaded him from traveling. According to an analysis by the BBC World Service, fans of more than a quarter of the countries participating in the World Cup face travel bans or significant obstacles to obtaining visas, and according to the investigation, fans also face additional obstacles that cause widespread anger and resentment. Also, the issue is eloquent when he says: "The World Cup is not ours.
It is not for the Arabs, but for them. If the request of the president of the Fan League is rejected, who will accept?" As one Ivory Coast fan summed it up by saying, "This is a form of discrimination that is not explicitly disclosed, but the evidence is clear," and asked, "No European country has faced this kind of restriction, so why Africa?"
The result is that the bans, restrictions and obstruction of travel procedures have led to millions of fans, even players and referees, around the world being denied entry to the United States to attend the World Cup.
The hosting of the current World Cup, along with Canada and Mexico, is a change of a major political nature, as it follows a major feud in which the United States, ten years ago, led the largest legal campaign against FIFA, the body responsible for organizing the World Cup.
It started with the FIFA administration trying to "tame" Trump, with its president Gianni Infantino spending years building a personal relationship with the tough U.S. president, "lavishing him with praise, trophies and accolades," according to a New York Times investigation, but it now looks as if FIFA has become a Trump subordinate, and that it's not about a relationship of mutual interests, according to former FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Qatar's victory in 2010 with the decision to organize the 2022 World Cup, at the expense of the United States, shocked the United States, followed by a tangible American action to regain its influence within the world of football, starting with exerting great pressure, and a political, media and judicial campaign against FIFA, in conjunction with a frantic effort to try to move the tournament from Qatar to the United States.
The campaign failed, but its repervishes led to the departure of Blatter and the arrival of Infantino, who devoted most of his time to this relationship with Trump, attending his inauguration, accompanying him on a Gulf tour in 2025, and succeeding in awarding him the FIFA "Peace Prize."
In addition to the racist incident of depriving hundreds of thousands of citizens of the "angry countries" of the United States from attending the World Cup, the latest victims of which were the Somali referee Omar Artan, who was banned from entering the United States, and the delay in the travel of Swiss striker Briel Embolo, the measures that prevented the Iranian delegation are revealed.
The departure of his team from the United States after every match and many other events, is a clear clash of the phenomena of racism, the politicization of sports, and the policies of the American right against immigrants in one package.
