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The 2026 World Cup is under way. Mexico City hosted the opening fixture — Mexico versus South Africa — on Thursday, and the tournament is already generating the kind of global noise that Fifa and its commercial partners spend four years manufacturing. Somewhere in the stands in the Estadio Azteca sat Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Football Association. He was there because he could not be anywhere else. His US visa has not been issued, which means the matches played on American soil remain, for now, inaccessible to him.
Rajoub is not alone. As the Guardian reports, he is among several accredited World Cup officials and supporters who have either been denied US visas outright or are still waiting on applications that show no sign of being processed. The list, by most accounts, is still growing.
This is not a minor administrative inconvenience. A World Cup is, at least in theory, a tournament for the world. When the host nation’s entry policies begin to shape who can and cannot attend, the sporting event becomes something else — a geopolitical statement dressed in replica kits.
What We Know About the Visa Situation
Jibril Rajoub and the Palestinian Football Association
Rajoub’s case is the most prominent so far. As head of the Palestinian Football Association, he holds accreditation through Fifa — the same accreditation that grants football federation chiefs access to matches, meetings, and official functions throughout the tournament. The Independent confirms he attended the opening match in Mexico but has not received his US visa, effectively barring him from the bulk of the tournament. Palestine are not competing at this World Cup — their federation chief’s inability to enter the United States is purely a matter of diplomatic and political circumstance.
Neither the US State Department nor Fifa has offered a formal public explanation for the delay or denial, which is itself telling. Silence tends to be the preferred diplomatic instrument when the answer would be more embarrassing than the question.
Iran Supporters and the Broader Pattern
Beyond officials, The Independent’s wider report documents Iranian fans among those unable to enter the United States for the tournament. Iran qualified for the 2026 World Cup and their supporters, like those of every other competing nation, are entitled to apply for visas to watch their team. The current US-Iran diplomatic relationship — which has been in various states of collapse for decades — appears to be making that process, at minimum, extremely difficult. The number of affected individuals is not precisely quantified in the available reporting, but the pattern is consistent enough to constitute a trend rather than isolated cases.
The broader picture, as The Independent’s investigation suggests, includes figures from multiple nations and roles — not all of whom have gone public. Some, presumably, have calculated that drawing attention to their visa denial serves no practical purpose.
What Remains Unclear
Several things are genuinely uncertain here, and it would be dishonest to paper over them.
First, the distinction between visa denial and visa delay matters legally and politically, and the reporting across sources uses both terms without always distinguishing between them. Rajoub’s case, for instance, is described variously as a denial and as a pending application with no resolution. Those are different situations with different implications.
Second, the total number of affected individuals is not established. The sources agree the list is growing but do not provide a verified figure. Estimates in situations like this tend to be unreliable in both directions — undercounted because many people do not come forward, overcounted because individual cases get conflated.
Third, Fifa’s position is opaque. The governing body has said relatively little publicly about what obligations, if any, the United States accepted regarding visa access when it was awarded hosting rights for 2026. Fifa’s hosting agreements typically include provisions about entry for accredited officials and supporters, but the enforceability of those provisions — particularly against a host government of the current American administration’s disposition — is another matter entirely.
The Political Context Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud
The Trump administration’s immigration and entry policies have been among the most restrictive in recent American history. That is not a partisan observation; it is the stated policy position of the administration itself, presented as a feature rather than a bug. Applying those policies to a global sporting event creates friction that was, frankly, foreseeable when the 2026 hosting rights were confirmed.
The Palestinian case carries particular weight given the current state of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The administration’s alignment with Israel’s government has been explicit and consistent. Whether that alignment directly informs individual visa decisions for Palestinian football officials is not something any official will confirm on record — but the circumstantial logic is not difficult to follow.
Iran’s situation is similarly straightforward in its geopolitical framing. US-Iran relations have not recovered from the collapse of the nuclear deal, and the current administration has shown no interest in warming them. Iranian nationals seeking US visas face a structural barrier that predates this World Cup and will outlast it.
None of this is new, exactly. The 2026 World Cup was always going to test the tension between Fifa’s universalist ambitions and the political realities of a host nation with a particular view of who belongs inside its borders. What is new is that the tournament has started and the tension is no longer theoretical.
A Brief Historical Footnote
It is worth noting, without excessive nostalgia, that the United States hosted the 1994 World Cup in a rather different political climate. As Sky Sports documents in their feature on Alan Rothenberg, the vision for that tournament was explicitly about opening America up to the world — using football as a vehicle for cultural exchange and commercial expansion simultaneously. Rothenberg’s project was, by most measures, a success. Attendances were enormous, the tournament ran smoothly, and the United States emerged from it with the infrastructure and appetite that eventually produced MLS and a generation of American footballers.
The 2026 edition arrives with considerably more complicated baggage. The football infrastructure is better. The political environment is not.
What Happens Next
The immediate question is whether Fifa will make any formal representations to the US government on behalf of affected officials and supporters. The governing body has leverage here — not enormous leverage, but some. The commercial and reputational value of the World Cup to the United States is substantial, and Fifa is not without tools to apply pressure quietly.
Whether Rajoub’s visa situation resolves before the knockout stages is unknown. Whether the number of affected individuals grows as the tournament progresses into its American phase seems, on current trajectory, likely.
The Bangladesh angle, reported separately by The Independent, is a useful counterpoint to all of this. In Dhaka, supporters of Brazil and Argentina — nations whose teams Bangladesh has never seen in person — are apparently fighting in the streets over the tournament. The World Cup’s capacity to generate passionate, irrational, joyful investment in people who have no direct stake in the outcome remains undiminished. The visa situation does not diminish that. It does, however, remind us that access to the tournament is not equally distributed, and that the gap between who the World Cup is for and who can actually attend it is wider in 2026 than Fifa’s promotional materials would suggest.
For those wanting to follow the tournament’s progress — including matches in Mexico and Canada where access questions are less fraught — our guide to watching football online in 2026 covers the broadcast landscape in detail. You can also find our full explainer on the 48-team format and what it means for how the competition unfolds. The World Cup section here at FootyGazette will track developments as the group stage progresses.
The football, for what it is worth, has been decent. The politics, as ever, have been less so.
FAQ
Has Jibril Rajoub been formally denied a US visa for the World Cup?
The situation is not entirely clear-cut. Rajoub has stated publicly that he has not received a US visa, which prevented him from attending matches on American soil. Whether this constitutes a formal denial or an unresolved pending application has not been confirmed by the US State Department. He attended the opening match in Mexico City, suggesting his accreditation is valid — the barrier is specifically entry to the United States.
Which other nationalities are affected by US visa issues at the 2026 World Cup?
Iranian supporters are among those documented as facing significant difficulties obtaining US visas. Beyond that, reporting suggests a broader group of officials and accredited individuals from various nations have encountered problems, though a precise and verified list has not been published. The situation appears to be evolving as the tournament progresses into its American phase.
Does Fifa have any power to intervene on visa denials for World Cup attendees?
Fifa’s hosting agreements typically include provisions about entry access for accredited officials and supporters, but the enforceability of those provisions against a sovereign government’s immigration decisions is legally uncertain. Fifa has not made any prominent public statement on the matter as of the time of writing, though quiet diplomatic channels may be in use.
Is Palestine competing at the 2026 World Cup?
No. Palestine did not qualify for the 2026 tournament. Jibril Rajoub’s attendance would have been in his capacity as a football federation head — a role that typically grants Fifa accreditation for World Cup events regardless of whether one’s national team has qualified.
Could the visa situation affect future World Cup hosting bids?
It is a reasonable question. Fifa’s stated commitment to universality — the idea that the World Cup belongs to all nations — is difficult to reconcile with a hosting arrangement that demonstrably prevents certain officials and supporters from attending. Whether this feeds into future hosting evaluations depends on how prominently the issue registers with Fifa’s membership, particularly the confederations representing affected nations. The 2030 and 2034 hosts are already confirmed, so any practical consequence would be longer-term.
