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Omar Artan is very good at his job; he deserves to do it wherever he is called. Omar Artan did everything he could to get a diplomatic visa and iron out the issues of access; so too did his home country. Omar Artan was elected to Fifa’s elite refereeing list by world football’s governing body – it has vouched for him.

So the absence of the Somalian referee from the World Cup is a stain on the tournament and the sport. It is a line in the sand, a new low. For all of the relevant human rights issues and geopolitical machinations of Russia and Qatar, all of which drew deserved scrutiny, we never witnessed anything quite like this.

In 2017, Donald Trump’s first presidential term, and subsequent travel bans imposed on mainly Muslim countries, coincided with the 2026 World Cup bidding process. Fifa president Gianni Infantino issued a warning: “Teams who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious. It’s obvious when it comes to Fifa competitions, any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup.

“The requirements will be clear. And then each country can make up their decision, whether they want to bid or not based on the requirements.”

It was an unequivocal statement, laid out in black and white. It was also entirely appropriate. You cannot trumpet this as the peak of global sport if limitations imposed upon it reduce its universality. You cannot talk up football’s – and Fifa’s – power to unite and promote peace if a host nation arbitrarily chooses who attends it.

What changed? Certainly Infantino has aligned himself politically with Trump since then, despite Fifa’s own statutes demanding it be apolitical. At worst, the creation and bestowal of a peace prize to an autocratic leader before a major tournament was a nadir for sport governance. At best, it was a strategy to soothe ego and curry favour.

But where are those favours and where has it got Infantino? All the promises, all the insistences that things would work out in the end, have fallen away. Fifa is used to being the only show in town when the World Cup is on. Here, that was never likely to be the status quo.

The solution of allowing Artan to officiate matches in Canada and Mexico, an unideal but permissible end result, doesn’t work. The referee camp, where they train, work together and receive all information ahead of the tournament, is held in Miami, where Artan was barred from entering the United States. No camp, no World Cup. 

But we shouldn’t be begging for half-solutions. The case of Artan undermines everything that came before. The travel bans on supporters are shameful and should have ruled the US out of the running to be World Cup hosts, but were predictable. Barring an official from the biggest month of his career despite him holding a diplomatic visa? Unacceptable, and embarrassing for world football’s governing body.

What is Fifa’s response to these broken promises of free movement? How has Infantino attacked the host nation for disobeying his 2017 stipulation of hosting the tournament?

“Fifa is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications, and has been informed by authorities that Mr Artan’s status will not be changed at present,” a statement read. “In line with previous Fifa events, a host government ultimately determines who receives a visa and who is admitted into their country.”

Ah, well that’s awkward. So although the free movement of supporters, players, staff and officials is necessary or “there is no World Cup”, it turns out that you couldn’t guarantee any of that and there still is a World Cup. 

Almost as if the bidder was able to say whatever it wanted and then do whatever it wanted. We’re through the looking glass. We’re beyond the pale. This should never have been allowed to happen.

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US police have been ramping up preparations for the World Cup, with fans warned officers will be armed with “pepper spray, guns and Tasers” in case of crowd trouble.

The i Paper understands huge numbers of additional police will be drafted in from neighbouring cities for England’s group games in Dallas, Boston and New Jersey. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers will also be present at matches.

Despite relatively low ticket take-up overall, England are taking huge numbers of supporters to the tournament, which will be co-hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico. There are expected to be over 10,000 travelling fans for each of England’s group matches, with around 3,500 of those attending through the Official Supporters’ Club.

The Football Association is confident of avoiding a repeat of the violent disorder involving England fans that flared up in Marseille in 2016 as they clashed with supporters from Russia, and at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley.

There are currently 2,467 fans in England and Wales who have been issued with football banning orders. It is understood those fans will have to surrender their passports for the period between 1 June and the conclusion of the World Cup to prevent them travelling to the tournament.

The i Paper has been told US police will only use guns in the case of “deadly force”, which comes down to an officer’s “judgement”. All officers will also be issued with body cameras before the tournament kicks off.

“Fans from the UK should expect to see officers wear a belt with a service weapon, a Taser, pepper spray. They do carry what we call ‘OC spray’ – or pepper spray. We don’t generally pull that out unless a situation really, really gets out of hand,” a source said.

“We’ll have a very large police presence in and around the stadiums. Additionally, the stadium itself has its own security force. That’s not law enforcement, but there are going to be a lot of them stationed in every section and every area of the stadium so that if they see something, fans get into fights that start to escalate, they can try to intervene and calm the situation.

“If it gets a little more serious, that’s when we may have to look at filing criminal charges and potentially arresting somebody.”

Police will be mainly be instructed to “take the path of least resistance” before using handcuffs, with stadium security also on hand to eject fans from games if need be.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: I’m driving 7,200 miles to tell the story of a World Cup like no other
• Mark Douglas: My England XI to start the World Cup – with three headaches for Tuchel

Sources close to the police operation in Arlington, Texas, host of England’s first group game against Croatia, said any fans who are prosecuted are likely to face any punishments, including jail, in the US rather than being sent home.

Extra police will also be deployed on an “off-duty” basis to provide cover in case of non-World Cup related emergencies.

The most common offences at this summer’s World Cup are expected to be assault, DWI – driving while intoxicated – and public intoxication.

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ORLANDO, FLORIDA — The list of the vanquished under Thomas Tuchel is reason for creeping concern about the state of the nation heading into the most complex, convoluted and hard to call World Cup of all: Albania, Latvia, Andorra, Serbia, Wales, New Zealand.

Decent sides? England have either dodged them or been defeated by them. So it is time to move through the gears – even if this is another gentle assignment on the east Coast of America.

Tuchel needs to cast aside experiments and take the wraps off his tournament picks. Which is why – looking through each department – his Arsenal champions need to start against Costa Rica and Harry Kane has to be given licence to fire alongside the rest of England’s heavy artillery.

Time for Tino to get a trial

Whisper it quietly but there is no longer so much flailing about among the back four. The doubts that swirled around England’s defence have been unfussily eliminated during Tuchel’s 18 months in charge and this is a position that picks itself.

Jordan Pickford is untouchable – James Trafford now established as his heir successor, a role that will be burnished if he picks Newcastle from the clubs coveting him this summer – and the same could probably be said for those jostling in the heart of defence too.

John Stones needs minutes so has to play here while Marc Guehi is the best of his generation and now a crack tournament operator. No concerns there.

Nico O’Reilly has made the left-back slot his own after stellar performances for Manchester City and the only contentious call I’d make is to give Newcastle’s Tino Livramento time at right-back.

It is not that Reece James isn’t a Rolls Royce of a right-back – he surely is – but the doubts around whether he can play so many games in such a short space of time mean alternatives must be tried out.

You could also see the logic of picking Livramento’s clubmate Dan Burn in the Tampa heat. The slower pace suits him, especially as a late substitute, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having him involved to hit from set pieces.

Bellingham has to be nailed on

We’re surely not going to do this with Jude Bellingham, are we?

Tuchel was asked whether he faced a fight for his starting role after the New Zealand stroll and he did what you would expect – kept Bellingham on his toes. But the Real Madrid man ticks every World Cup box: experience, ability, big game moments. Morgan Rogers is a fine player but doesn’t bring that sort of heft to his CV.

Elliot Anderson’s energy will be all the more useful alongside Declan Rice, who hops off the plane and into the starting XI.

Rashford edges ahead of Gordon

It’s a shame Rio Ngumoha didn’t make it in as the bolter to this World Cup squad. His elastic feet and energy – he seemed to be peaking at just the right time in the domestic season – would have given Tuchel headaches.

As it is, the biggest call is who starts on the left and if performances in the first warm up game count for anything it will be Marcus Rashford who sees off the challenge of fellow Barcelona forward Anthony Gordon.

Rashford – who put himself through his own pre-tournament camp in the US after the season concluded – looked really sharp, albeit against the lowest ranked side heading to the World Cup. But his zip, zest and energy raised hopes that he could match the sort of performances that he delivered in Qatar in 2022.

Form should count for everything with only a week to go until England’s opener against Croatia. The Three Lions feel undercooked, time for them to start sizzling in the Orlando heat.

My England XI to face Costa Rica (4-3-3)

Goalkeeper

• Jordan Pickford

Defence

• Tino Livramento
• John Stones
• Marc Guehi
• Nico O’Reilly

Midfield

• Elliot Anderson
• Declan Rice
• Jude Bellingham

Attack

• Bukayo Saka
• Harry Kane
• Marcus Rashford

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So Jude Bellingham must fight for a starting berth against Croatia next week, beginning with Tuesday’s training game against Costa Rica. Maybe the repulsion felt by Thomas Tuchel’s mother during the defeat by Senegal a year ago was more significant than the apology from her son that followed.

So much for the Bellingham sweet spot identified by Tuchel during the second half against New Zealand. The contest had all the intensity of a pilates-for-beginners class, yet Bellingham was so much better than any other player in red and utterly eclipsed his rival for the No 10 jersey, Morgan Rogers.

Unless Birmingham City were wrong to make him their youngest player at 16 and 38 days. Unless Borussia Dortmund were wrong to take him at 17, Manchester United wrong to try to get him at the same age and Real Madrid wrong to splash more than €100m on him at 20, Tuchel is in a class of one in seeing deficiencies in Bellingham.

Having laboured through 60 years of World Cup treacle it seems preposterous to be questioning the value of a player so obviously superior, so obviously of world class in the part of the pitch where control is established.

The quality quotient in Rogers is self-evidently high, too, but on the spectrum of the exceptionally gifted, Bellingham is England’s most precious commodity, a player to inspire his own and spread fear in the other.

Arsenal learned the perils of trying to win at elite level by subordinating the best of themselves to some crazed idea about containment, about sacrificing possession, and they had Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard in the middle against Paris Saint-Germain.

It feels like Tuchel is rehashing that age-old English distrust of the soloist, dragging us back into the realm of the honest trier. The award of vice-captaincy to Rice, who is straight out of central casting in his straight-backed, no-nonsense, indefatigable expression of Englishness, is another indication of Tuchel’s attitude towards Bellingham. It would appear the lad is just not for him.

Tuchel can’t beat Spain, France, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Portugal etc with his best player chained to a shrunken vision of what an England team might be. Some of us have spent a lifetime seeing good players turn to mush in England shirts, trapped by a sense of inferiority and an attachment to work-rate over expression.

Don’t let Bellingham, and as a consequence this team, become the unnecessary victims of that ancient trope. It is bad enough that the likes of Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Adam Wharton, Jarrod Bowen and soon Rio Ngumoha, for that matter, are exiled in beachland without stifling England’s creative core further.

Read more

Mark Douglas: I already hate the World Cup’s latest gimmick

Special report: My British husband was detained by ICE – I fear for England fans in the US

Daniel Storey: Eight outrageous ways fans are being ripped off at the World Cup

Bellingham might indeed have attitude. If narcissism were ever a drag on performance, Ayrton Senna would have been cleaning cars, not racing them, Diego Maradona would have been serving pizzas in Naples, not eating them – and Cristiano Ronaldo might still be putting out deckchairs in Funchal.

The arrogance and disdain for lesser gods is probably a pathology that would see them locked up in other walks of life but in sport they are attributes that shatter norms and propel them into a dimension beyond the rank and file. Why sacrifice that if, properly harnessed, it can make the difference between winning and losing?

The English have experienced enough of the latter at the World Cup to know what it takes to fail.
The Three Lions might not win it with Bellingham. Without him they give themselves the best chance of falling. Again.

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Behind reams of barbed wire, in the shadows of watchtowers kept by armed guards, more than 73,000 people are being held in the United States’ biggest immigration detention operation in history.

In buildings which once served as state prisons, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) face allegations of physical abuse, refusing medical care for detainees, and running centres with sewage leaks, pest infestations and inadequate food.

Sami Hamdi, a British journalist and activist held by ICE for 18 days, is considered “one of the lucky ones” following his release at the end of 2025. In San Francisco, he had been waiting to board a plane to Florida when he was approached by ICE agents and told his visa was no longer valid. Despite being born in Lambeth, south London, his requests to fly home to the UK were rejected.

“They weren’t going to let anyone know that he was being detained,” his wife Soumaya Hamdi tells The i Paper.

“We weren’t able to get in touch with him at all until several days after that. He is a British citizen, he was there on a valid visa, not even on an ESTA. It was revoked without his knowledge. Logically speaking, you would expect a functioning democracy, a country like the United States – supposedly a close ally operating under the rule of law – to inform someone if they are revoking their visa.
“He was informed his visa was revoked two days prior – so they deliberately designed it so that he would have stayed illegally without his knowledge.”

ICE’s new powers

Hamdi was kept in a room with up to 90 people in a detention centre in California. At the same time, his family – unaware of his detention – were preparing to meet him for a holiday in New York. “I was packing the suitcases and a friend texted me, ‘is it true that Sami has been detained by ICE?’” Soumaya recalls. “That was the first I heard about it. My heart dropped.”

In the coming days, when he became ill with “extreme pain in the stomach”, he was initially not allowed to see a doctor. When Soumaya first tried to contact Hamdi, an ICE agent took his phone and switched it off.

Donald Trump’s administration has given ICE unprecedented new levels of manpower. In January, 12,000 new officers were recruited – an increase of 120 per cent. There have been proposals to facilitate 100,000 detention centre beds.

In existing centres, Freedom for Immigrants data shows 108 have sanitation and hygiene issues. Ninety-three have faced allegations of abusive behaviour from staff towards detainees, while 121 have inadequate medical services.

The centre in which Hamdi was kept was one example. When he was arrested, he was handcuffed and pushed against a vehicle, being told he had breached immigration laws. However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggested that Hamdi, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war on Gaza, had been detained for his political views. “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans,” the State Department wrote on X.

“If you have criticised the US administration or a foreign state like Israel, or if you’ve shown any support for Palestinian human rights, you are potentially a target,” says Soumaya. “If you look Muslim, you’re automatically a target, which we already know from the way ICE are conducting themselves, taking people off the streets. They’ve got this policy now of ‘arrest first, detain first, ask questions later.

“We’ve seen people have been detained from their own homes while being indoors. They’ve had armed officers turn up to the house with full-on military gear demanding to detain inhabitants of houses… White US citizens have been shot in broad daylight and killed. So anyone really traveling to the United States in this kind of climate is potentially a target.”

The vast majority of ICE centres are privately owned, so security companies such as CoreCivil and The GEO Group profit from greater detention numbers. Over nearly three weeks in his centre, Sami Hamdi spoke to other detainees with “heartbreaking” stories. Some said they had been abducted following routine visa appointments.

What the Foreign Office advises England’s travelling fans

“Local laws in the US may vary by state. While you are in a state, you are subject to both that state’s laws and national [federal] law. Not following all US state and federal laws can put your visa status and future travel to the US at risk. You are expected to have a copy of your ESTA or Visa and proof of identity with you at all times.”

Since Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, there have been nine deaths from ICE shootings. Some cases like Renee Good, a 37-year-old American woman shot in her car in Minneapolis, have attracted worldwide media attention. Other allegations against ICE agents include using undue force in the shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican immigrant who was killed while dropping his children off at school.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a refugee from Myanmar, died after being left by the side of the road by Department of Homeland Security officials. Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez was seeking asylum from domestic abuse when her home was raided and she was deported to Colombia – relatives were not allowed to give her deaf six-year-old son his hearing aids.

‘England fans should boycott the World Cup’

Federal officials confirmed last week that there as it stands, ICE agents will not be deployed to World Cup matches specifically, though that is “subject to change”. Civil rights activists have nevertheless voiced fears that ICE agents will be active during the tournament, when large groups from different diasporas will gather to watch the games.

Believing “the World Cup will be a really busy time for ICE,” and in light of her husband’s experiences, Soumaya Hamdi urges fans from England and Scotland to “think twice or three times” before travelling to this summer’s tournament.

“I think they should absolutely boycott it, 110 per cent,” she says.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: I’m driving 7,200 miles to tell the story of a World Cup like no other
• Kevin Garside: Thomas Tuchel has just been shown how not to win the World Cup

“It’s just completely contradictory to any kind of semblance of human rights and humanity in general. It’s unethical at this point to support the World Cup that’s being hosted in a country that treats both foreigners and its own citizens in such brutal, brutal ways that are reminiscent of the militarised police forces we see in Palestine, in the West Bank for example.

“We’re starting to see the way that Palestinians have been treated for the past 70 years is now coming home in the United States. Anyone thinking of travelling to the United States should just completely rethink that decision because your life and your liberty is genuinely at risk.

“Anyone who stands for human rights, who stands for the rule of law and freedom of speech, should be boycotting the United States until we see a change in this behaviour. Because it’s not only a danger to the freedoms of US citizens, or people living in the United States. It is a danger for all of us, all around the world.”

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Christian Eriksen collapsed during Denmark’s friendly against Ukraine and was briefly unconscious but is “doing well”, according to the Danish Football Association.

Eriksen, 34, suffered a cardiac arrest while playing for his country at the European Championship in 2021, but made a full recovery.

He had an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) fitted after the incident and returned to training just six months later and making his comeback

The midfielder had hoped to appear at a fourth World Cup this summer, but Denmark failed to qualify after defeat on penalties to Czechia.

Having been briefly dropped by Denmark last year, Eriksen’s form in Germany earned him a recall and he was winning his 151st cap for his country at the Odense Stadium on Sunday night, where they were leading Ukraine 2-1 after 65 minutes when he collapsed.

“Christian is doing well and walked off the pitch by himself. As I see it, the pacemaker responded as it should,” said Morten Boesen, the Danish national team’s doctor said.

“He was briefly unconscious, but regained consciousness very quickly, and we were quickly in contact with him.

“He will now undergo further examinations at the hospital to determine what caused the incident. We are in ongoing contact with him and the doctors at the hospital.

“But Christian is doing well, and he asked me to send his regards to all the players and tell them that he was okay.”

After leaving Tottenham in January 2020 having spent nearly seven years at the club, Eriksen signed for Inter Milan.

But after suffering a heart attack at the delayed Euro 2020 tournament 18 months later and having an ICD fitted, he was told that he would not be able to play for Inter again due to Italian Football Federation rules over pacemakers and defibrillators.

He instead signed for Brentford in January 2022 before going on to play for Manchester United and his current club Wolfsburg.

More to follow

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England 1-0 New Zealand (Kane 45+3)

It’s football but not as we know it.

When England meandered over to the touchline after 23 minutes of this glorified training session, you soon realised why this World Cup is going to be so different any that has gone before.

The drinks break is nothing of the sort, really. It’s actually a revolution in the way the game is played – a three-minute interval in which managers can change the narrative and momentum can be arrested. News flash – most people seemed to hate it. Count me in that column.

I get it: it’s hot. The players obviously need to take on water. But the way it is being administered isn’t just a quick sip on the sidelines, it’s introducing four quarters by stealth and my early call is that it will be 2026’s equivalent of 2010’s hated vuvuzela.

In this friendly it didn’t seem especially out of place. There was so little competitive edge that you could barely notice the change in rhythm. But imagine it’s the semi-final in Atlanta on 15 July and England have the edge in a titanic tussle with Argentina – only for the officials to give the world champions respite on 68 minutes so Lionel Messi and company can have a few glugs of their branded water bottles.

Tuchel’s tactical time outs

As aesthetically jarring as the drinks break is, it feels as if mastering this sort of stuff is going to be important. Having a decent XI is still going to matter and England have that, even if few showed much in a narrow win over New Zealand, but World Cups are often decided on who wins the big moments.

Perhaps it will help England that they have Thomas Tuchel on the sidelines, because he has always been elite at game management. The right words, a smart tweak – these are the sort of things that persuaded the Football Association to hire him to move England on from the Gareth Southgate era.

Elsewhere? Tuchel will be happy enough. He said afterwards that the second half gave him more pleasure than the first and there was certainly a zip about Anthony Gordon, now of Barcelona, and the energetic Elliot Anderson. Many would have taken Harry Maguire over Dan Burn but the Newcastle man clipped a post with a header and generally looked accomplished. England paced themselves quite nicely and seemed happy enough in the heat.

Only one player made a real impression

Morgan Rogers was involved in the “A” side of this one, Jude Bellingham apparently on the “B” side who came on later. Yet the Real Madrid man showed glimpses of the sort of drive which will set England apart in their American adventure.

There wasn’t much else to glean from a game played with as much intensity as the average Soccer Aid contest.

England won, Harry Kane led from the front and 22 players got a run out in the Tampa heat. There was a bit more sizzle in the second half but the paucity of the opposition, officially the worst team to be playing at the World Cup, means little was really learned.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Eight outrageous ways fans are being ripped off at the World Cup
• Michael Hincks: The World Cup’s 13 best kits – and where England rank

Except, maybe, that Tuchel should try and sneak Rio Ngumoha on the plane when England jet into their World Cup training base in Kansas next week.

Ngumoha ended the season as Liverpool’s breakout star and looked electric among a collection of low wattage performances. If the idea in America is to have players in reserve who can stretch wilting defences, the 17-year-old might well have been worth a call.

Tuchel decided it was too early for him this summer but an early prediction: by Euro 2028 he will be indispensible to this England side.

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