For Mustafa al Saadi, following Iraq's national football team had become a tradition shared with three colleagues from Mosul General Hospital. They had traveled together to tournaments abroad for years, and when Iraq qualified for its first FIFA World Cup since 1986, they began planning another journey—this time to Philadelphia for the team's match against France.
Only three of the friends boarded the plane.
Al Saadi's U.S. visa application remained pending as he joined other supporters in Mosul to watch the match from home while his friends took their seats inside the stadium thousands of kilometers away. "It is a very sad feeling to see your close friends present with the national team in every country in the world, but I am not," he told the Associated Press.
His experience has become one of the defining human stories of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a tournament celebrated for expanding to 48 teams and three host nations, yet marked by the reality that qualifying for football's biggest stage did not guarantee that supporters could reach it.
Across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, fans, journalists and even some tournament personnel found themselves caught in visa delays, travel restrictions and immigration procedures that unfolded far from the stadiums where the world's attention was focused. While FIFA organized the competition, entry into the United States, Canada and Mexico remained subject to each country's immigration laws and border policies.
The consequences were visible in the stands.
Scotland's long-awaited return to the World Cup brought tens of thousands of supporters dressed in tartan and marching behind bagpipers through host cities. By contrast, several qualifying nations whose supporters faced higher visa refusal rates or travel restrictions were represented by much smaller groups. The contrast illustrated how access to the tournament depended not only on sporting achievement but also on the ability to secure permission to travel.
For some, months of planning unraveled at embassy counters.
Ghanaian journalist Prince Ayim Brown said he had saved money, accepted additional work assignments and attended U.S. Embassy training sessions designed for reporters preparing to cover the World Cup. His visa application was nevertheless denied without explanation, according to his account reported by AP.
"World Cup is the pinnacle of football—every journalist and every football fan wants to be there," Brown said. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the list of qualified teams had been known for months, allowing supporters requiring visas time to apply. The department said it had deployed more than 600 additional consular staff, created millions of additional visa appointments and used FIFA's credentialing system to prioritize tournament-related applications while maintaining existing security standards.
Supporters from Senegal also found themselves separated from the event they had hoped to witness firsthand. Dakar salesman Assane Ly instead joined hundreds of fans watching Senegal's opening match on a giant screen at a public viewing area.
"The World Cup is supposed to be a moment when geopolitics are on hold," Ly said, reflecting on the opportunity he believed international football should provide for people from different countries to meet and celebrate together.
Officials in several countries reported organized supporter groups abandoning travel plans after visa applications failed.
According to AFP reporting, Senegal's official supporters' contingent was unable to travel after visa applications were rejected. Ivory Coast's national supporters' committee likewise said planned trips had been canceled following unsuccessful applications, leaving both teams without their traditional organized fan groups at the tournament.
Visa complications extended beyond supporters.
Reuters reported before the tournament that while Iran's players ultimately received U.S. visas, several senior federation officials and support staff remained unable to enter, forcing temporary logistical arrangements based in neighboring Mexico. During the tournament, Iranian captain Mehdi Taremi described repeated cross-border travel between Mexico and the United States as a "logistical disaster," while coach Amir Ghalenoei criticized the conditions facing his squad.
Other participants encountered similar obstacles. Somali referee Omar Artan, selected as the first Somali official for a World Cup, was denied entry to the United States, while football officials and media representatives from several countries reported delays or refusals as governments maintained existing immigration procedures despite the global event.
The issues highlighted a longstanding tension surrounding international sporting events hosted by countries with complex immigration systems. Previous World Cups often relied on tournament-specific travel arrangements that simplified entry for accredited visitors and ticket holders. For the 2026 competition, however, the North American hosts generally continued using their existing visa frameworks rather than creating a unified tournament entry system.
The United States has maintained that visa decisions remain individual determinations based on national security and immigration law. State Department officials said significant resources had been devoted to processing World Cup-related applications while preserving established security standards.
Yet for supporters whose journeys ended before departure gates, those explanations did little to soften the disappointment.
Instead of collecting ticket stubs and photographs from stadiums, many gathered in neighborhood cafés, public squares and fan zones, following matches on large screens alongside fellow supporters who had also remained behind.
For Al Saadi in Mosul, the World Cup still arrived, just not in the way he had imagined when Iraq secured qualification after four decades away from football's biggest tournament. As his friends watched from the stands in Philadelphia, he cheered from home—connected to the same match, but separated by a visa that never arrived in time.
