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The biggest football event on the planet – the 2026 World Cup – is fast approaching, with the opening ceremony taking place on June 11th in three co-hosting countries: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This is a historic tournament as the scale of the competition has expanded to 48 participating teams, promising to deliver explosive sporting events for fans worldwide.
However, behind the excitement of millions of football fans, a crisis of "US tourist visa application procedures" is unfolding silently but fiercely. Thousands of fans from many countries are at risk of missing out on their World Cup dream due to strict visa policies and a record-high visa rejection rate from the host country, the United States.
According to statistics, fans from over 25% of the countries with teams participating in the tournament are facing formidable administrative barriers, making the journey to securing a ticket to the stadium more distant than ever.
Fans from many countries risk missing out on the 2026 World Cup due to strict visa policies from the United States.
Currently, the US government is imposing strict entry bans on four countries whose teams have qualified for the 2026 World Cup finals: Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. Julien Kouadio Adonis, a representative of the Ivory Coast Supporters' Association, expressed deep indignation, calling this an unfair form of discrimination in sports. He emphasized that no European country has ever faced such severe restrictions and questioned why African fans are being deprived of this rightful right.
Aliou Ngom, a veteran Senegalese fan who attended the last two World Cups in Russia and Qatar, was also powerless against the legal obstacles. Although in May the US announced the removal of the $15,000 deposit requirement for fans holding match tickets from Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia, they imposed a strict deadline requiring these individuals to complete the visa application process before December.
Statistics from the BBC covering the period from October 2024 to September 2025 reveal a worrying reality regarding the visa approval rate of the US diplomatic service. Of the 48 countries eligible to compete in the World Cup, 11 countries suffered visa rejection rates (across all visa types) that were more than 40% higher than the rest of the world. This list includes Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Cape Verde, Jordan, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Senegal.
In Jordan, where 57% of US visa applications are rejected within a year leading up to the end of September 2025, Abu Kass, head of the country's football fan association, shared that he had prepared meticulously, bringing over 42 different supporting documents to the embassy in Amman, but still received a rejection from the consular officer.
To assist, the FIFA Pass system has been implemented to prioritize interview appointments for those who purchased tickets directly from FIFA.
Faced with waves of criticism from the international community, the World Football Federation (FIFA) attempted to intervene by implementing the FIFA Pass system to support and prioritize interview scheduling for individuals who purchased tickets directly through the FIFA system. However, this solution could not address the root of the legal problem.
Celine Atallah, a respected immigration law expert in Massachusetts, argues that the FIFA Pass system essentially only speeds up the interview scheduling process and has no ability to influence or increase an applicant's visa approval rate. She frankly likens the visa system to an "invisible gatekeeper" of the 2026 World Cup, because the ultimate decision-making power in allowing a foreigner to enter US territory still rests with the US government and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On the other hand, a spokesperson for the US State Department affirmed that the Washington administration is always ready to welcome visitors from around the world to what is expected to be the biggest and greatest World Cup in FIFA history. The agency also noted that foreign fans will be exempt from using the FIFA Pass system if they are citizens of Canada or from one of the 42 countries on the US visa waiver program list, or if they already possess a valid visa.
Nevertheless, the U.S. State Department emphasized that it is obligated to conduct an extremely rigorous vetting process for each individual application to ensure national security and prevent any potential risks. In addition, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has expressed deep concern about the wave of overstays following the tournament. Official figures indicate that more than 538,000 foreign nationals illegally remained in the U.S. between October 2023 and September 2024.
In fact, out of the 104 matches in the entire tournament, 78 (including the prestigious final) were held in stadiums located in the United States. Meanwhile, the two co-hosting nations, Canada and Mexico, have significantly more open visa policies and do not impose any travel bans targeting specific countries.
Although Canada has recently imposed some entry restrictions on areas affected by the Ebola outbreak in Africa – including the Democratic Republic of Congo, a qualifying country – it has not released details of its visa rejection rates by country or visa type, even though Canada's overall visa rejection rate for 2025 is quite high at 54%.
The U.S. State Department emphasized that it must carefully review each visa application to ensure that the individual does not pose a security risk to the United States.
On the Mexican side, the country does not publicly release data on visa rejection rates but requires visa applicants to submit their applications in person at diplomatic missions. This inadvertently creates a significant geographical barrier, as eight participating countries – Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia, and Iraq – do not have any Mexican embassies or consulates for citizens to access when submitting applications.
The combination of geographical barriers and stringent security policies is turning the dream of the 2026 World Cup into a grueling journey, testing the patience and wallets of fans worldwide.
