The US' World Cup Travel Warnings Are All Coming True
Players, referees, and officials are being banned, denied entry, searched on the runway, or being checked with sniffer dogs upon entering the US for the 2026 World Cup.
When South Africa arrived in Mexico, whom they will face in the 2026 World Cup opening match on June 11, they were greeted with a mariachi band.
When Senegal arrived in New York on June 8, they were forced to undergo a security screening on the tarmac, not even inside the building.
When Uzbekistan stepped off their team bus ahead of a friendly with the Netherlands, they were met with sniffer dogs.
For more than a year, press freedom bodies and civil liberties groups warned that staging the World Cup inside the widest US travel restriction in modern history would see people turned away at the border.
FiFA promised the process would be smooth. The US government made some concessions toward athlete exemptions, but the deployment of ICE in stadiums and threats to specific nations showed the scare tactics were not going away.
Two days before the opening match, it’s all coming true.
The Sports and Crime Briefing tracks the most significant disruptions to date.
