367
Top African referee Omar Artan refused access to US and will miss World Cup
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
367 points (99.5% liked)
World News
56461 readers
2704 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They are responsible for not having changed venues as soon as it was clear the US was not going to make the world cup a safe event for anyone, from fans, to players, to referees.
They are also responsible for not having dequalified the US when they abused their status as an host country to exclude referees or putting undue hardships on other national teams (especially Iran, but plenty of countries had trouble getting their teams in the US). They are opening the precedent that host countries can tip the scale how much they want without consequences.
It's FIFA. Human rights abuses are just how they operate.
Are you saying Qatar is a sham state that has modern day slavery or am I reading into it too much. /s
Ignoring human rights is par for the course for an oligarch run organisation. Messing with the gambling's integrity is the surprising part.
I'm actually surprised that they're not getting sued by their sponsors. Continuing to keep the event in the US and allowing ticket prices to get out of hand are going to result in fewer attendees. Surely that violates their contract because they will have promised certain attendance levels, which presumably they're now not going to get.
Did you really expect better from FIFA?
They used to draw the line at open cheating. I guess they just figured out there's no point on keeping any kind of public appearance of propriety.
Money don't care about that. People want to watch people chase and kick the ball. Money wants more money.
If people dumb enough to watch people chase around ball, I find it hard to complain about other people taking advantage of that.
What a gross thing to say. Even if your ignorant generalization about football fans werr true, being complacent and smug about them being preyed on says a lot about you as a person.
People should be able to enjoy their hobbies and passions without participation being monetized at every turn. I don't know why that's a radical position to you.
Not ignorant, and absolutely true. Yes I am being a bit snarky. But I will just copy paste what I said to another poster:
"there is a rabid fandom that puts their needs above all else. They are not going to care what the parent company does or what the countries involved do. They are willing to feed the greed at all costs. For this reason, I cannot empathize with them. They don’t care, and the people making money most certainly also don’t care, because they are still making money."
And you said: "People should be able to enjoy their hobbies and passions without participation being monetized at every turn."
I agree with that 100 percent. I like playing sports. If people like watching people playing sports, good on them, they don't need a corporation to do it for them.
But the opposite is happening: they are being monitized, and they don't care. They want to believe its "their team" not a billionaires. They want to buy merchandise and do what ever it takes to be sold the football "product". That is what they care about. You can argue with me as much as you want, but the evidence is right here in this article.
Yes people want to watch the football that's why it exists as a sport. If people weren't interested it would be water polo.
Do you watch TV?
Not really very often.
But I do know that a billionaire owns the network and doesn't care about me. I know it is not "my show" and I wont advertise it by wearing clothing for it. I won't base my identity on it.
Most importantly: If a show or even a corporate owner is problematic, I would stop watching and supporting it without a second thought.
I am snarky about this, yes. I would rather play any sport than watch it.
But my real point is that there is a rabid fandom that puts their needs above all else. They are not going to care what the parent company does or what the countries involved do. They are willing to feed the greed at all costs. For this reason, I cannot empathize with them. They don't care, and the people making money most certainly also don't care, because they are still making money.