Omar Artan — barred from the World Cup in Miami, chosen for the UEFA Super Cup in Salzburg. Football answered. Days after being barred from the World Cup by US authorities, questioned for 11 hours and sent to Turkey, Somali referee Omar Artan was named by UEFA to officiate the Super Cup — Europe’s answer to an ordeal that has drawn condemnation from the UN and shaken football’s global governance.
Omar Artan arrived back in Somalia to a hero’s welcome. He had been refused entry into the United States despite being selected by FIFA for World Cup duty, held for 11 hours by US authorities in Miami — who claimed, without providing proof, that he had connections to terror organisations — and put on a flight to Turkey. Within days, UEFA had seen enough.
On Thursday, European football’s governing body announced that Artan — 34 years old, voted best referee in Africa last season, and the official who took charge of the African Champions League final last month — would referee the UEFA Super Cup on 12 August in Salzburg, Austria. The match pits Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain against Europa League winner Aston Villa.
“Football is made to connect people — and UEFA wants to show its respect to Omar and his outstanding officiating skills”. — Aleksander Čeferin, UEFA President · Geneva, 12 June 2026
The move was coordinated with the Confederation of African Football and its president Patrice Motsepe — both Čeferin and Motsepe are FIFA vice presidents. “Omar Artan has made Somalia and the entire people of the African continent extremely proud”, Motsepe said. “This is a great honor for Omar Artan and for African referees — and an excellent example of football bringing together and uniting people from Africa and Europe and worldwide”.
FIFA’s silence, the UN’s voice and a wider reckoning
Artan’s treatment has widened into a broader confrontation over US immigration policy during the World Cup. The United Nations’ top human rights official criticised the ordeal on Wednesday. FIFA president Gianni Infantino, for his part, said the organisation was powerless to intervene: “We need to respect that we are not the kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces”. That response drew its own criticism — UEFA’s gesture toward Artan was read, in part, as an implicit rebuke of FIFA’s passivity.
Motsepe made his statement hours before his native South Africa opened the World Cup against co-host Mexico at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City — a match that, like Artan’s story, carried the weight of a continent watching closely.
- Source: AP