Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, who was expected to officiate at matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup but was denied entry to US, addresses fans at the Mogadishu stadium, in Mogadishu, Somalia, June 10, 2026.
Omar Abdulkadir Artan, a 34-year-old native of Mogadishu, rose to become CAF's Men's Referee of the Year in 2025.
Despite holding a valid visa, Artan was denied entry at Miami International Airport on June 6 while travelling for World Cup duty.
Walk around Nairobi today, stop at a café, or wander through a hotel lobby, and you are likely to hear Somali-Canadian musician K'naan's "Wavin' Flag". The familiar soaring melody has made a surprising comeback 16 years after it served as the soundtrack to Africa's World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
"Wavin' Flag's" popularity extended beyond the World Cup by two or three years, and by the 2014 tournament in Brazil, it had long fallen off the top charts. Its resurgence, nevertheless, could be explained by football nostalgia, given that the World Cup is currently on in Canada, Mexico, and the US, one might argue. Well and good, but then why didn't it rebound in 2018 during the World Cup in Russia, or in 2022 during the World Cup in Qatar? This suggests that beneath the celebratory surface lies a deeper cultural undercurrent.
