Visa Denials and Entry Delays: 'Visa Issues' Overshadow the World Cup

[Anchor]

At this year's World Cup, an unprecedented series of incidents has occurred where participating athletes and officials have been denied entry or faced significant delays due to visa issues. The global sports festival is suffering from political complications.

Reporter Jeon Young-min has the story.

[Reporter]

The Uruguayan national team, which faces its first match early tomorrow (June 16), barely arrived in Miami, USA, just 24 hours before kickoff.

Due to issues with documents required for entry into the U.S., their flight was delayed, which even pushed back the scheduled time for the Uruguayan head coach's press conference.

[Bielsa/Uruguay National Football Team Head Coach: (I am curious about how the flight delay affected your preparations.) No, the flight delay did not cause any problems for us.]

Uruguay is not the only team to face such difficulties.

Referee Artan, who is from Somalia, was denied entry despite having a U.S. visa, and the president of the Palestinian Football Association was refused entry into the U.S. despite the tradition of inviting football association presidents from all countries to the World Cup.

The Iranian national team changed its base camp to Mexico instead of the United States, where the matches are being held.

The Trump administration's strict entry restriction policy is impacting the World Cup.

While most host nations for the World Cup and the Olympics have traditionally allowed unrestricted entry even to individuals from hostile countries to uphold the status of a "sports festival," FIFA, unable to sway the U.S. government, has stated on its ticket sales website that tickets for this tournament do not guarantee entry into the host country.

Canada also denied a visa to Ghanaian midfielder Partey, who has been charged with sexual assault, leaving national teams on edge throughout the tournament.

(Video Editing: So Ji-hye, Design: Kim Min-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.