The head of the White House Task Force for the World Cup on Tuesday defended the decision not to grant U.S. visas to a Somali referee and some support staff for the Iranian team.
“To this point we’ve had 35 teams that have come into the United States,” Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the task force, 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.”
“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 added.
Giuliani, the son of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was asked specifically about the decision to bar Somali referee Omar Artan from entering the country. Artan would have been the first Somali to referee at a World Cup.
“While I can’t go into the details, what I can tell you, high level, is it was for a very good reason,” Giuliani said of Artan, who was turned back at Miami International Airport.
Somalia is one of 39 countries on a travel ban list introduced by President Trump’s administration as part of a broader immigration crackdown.
The Iranian football federation said Tuesday that its allocation of tickets for supporters had been revoked and some team support staff were denied visas.
Giuliani said “all the Iranian coaching staff is coming in” but there are “some Iranian officials that are not coming in — again for very good reason.”
He said he “can’t get into the particulars” but “there are some people that claim that they are coaches that may not be coaches.”
Giuliani said Mr. Trump wants to make sure that there is a “level playing field” for all of the teams taking part in the World Cup, “while also making sure 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.”
