The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has come under fire over its silence on the United States’ travel ban and visa restrictions for African fans wishing to attend the 2026 World Cup, which is billed to hold in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

With barely one month to the kickoff of the world championship, many African football fans cannot acquire the travel documents to enter the U.S., which will host more than half of the 2026 World Cup games.

Some fans are lamenting that, where they have been given dates for visa interviews, the dates are so unrealistic that the championship would have ended before the scheduled visit to the embassies.

In December last year, U.S. President Donald Trump used the closing minutes of a White House cabinet meeting to call Somalis “garbage.”

He said: “Their country is no good for a reason … Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country.”

Writing for Aljazeera.com, Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, an expert on governance, security and peace in Africa, recalled that many at that time recalled Trump’s 2018 remarks about African countries being “shithole.”

He described Trump’s remarks as a clear demonstration of his racist attitude towards a whole continent, which has been translated into policies which will affect the African countries that qualified for the World Cup. “And yet, there is no reaction from FIFA, and more importantly, no reaction from the Confederation of African Football (CAF),” he said.

Halakhe is worried that two of the countries in Trump’s travel ban list, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, are African, yet the continent has done nothing to defend these countries.

“In addition to that, three other African countries that have qualified for the World Cup – Algeria, Tunisia, and Cabo Verde – are on a list for the so-called visa bond programme, which requires visa applicants to post refundable bonds of up to $15,000 before being issued a visa. There is no waiver for World Cup fans.

“For many fans, this would be an impossible sum to produce in addition to travel and match ticket expenses. In Tunisia, for example, the gross disposable income per capita is a little more than $500. A Tunisian fan may be made to pay as much as 30 times this amount as a bond to get a US visa.

“CAF has issued no statement, nor has any African national football federation. That silence is a direct repudiation of what CAF used to be,” he said.

He recalled that FIFA allocated 10 slots to Europe for the 1966 World Cup, four to South America and one to Central America and the Caribbean, while the remaining one slot was to be contested by Africa, Oceania and Asia.

According to him, Ohene Djan, Ghana’s then director of sport and a member of the FIFA Executive Committee, sent a telegram to FIFA, with the backing of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah.

“Ethiopia’s Yidnekatchew Tessema joined the Ghanaian, labelling the FIFA decision a mockery of economics, politics, and geography.

“When FIFA refused to revise the allocation, all 15 then-eligible African federations withdrew. The 1966 World Cup proceeded without an African team.

“In 1968, FIFA was forced to grant Africa and Asia one guaranteed slot each. Every African appearance at every World Cup since then is thanks to that single telegram sent by Djan.

“Today, CAF comprises 54 federations. It is fully integrated into FIFA’s revenue and governance architecture. It has nine guaranteed World Cup slots, a large AFCON revenue stream, FIFA Forward funding, and a president who serves as a FIFA vice president by virtue of holding the CAF chair.

“A confrontational stance at this moment carries real institutional cost. This reality is itself the indictment. The integration of African football into FIFA’s revenue architecture has produced a confederation whose institutional survival now depends on never acting on the principles it was founded to defend.”

He said that there are actions CAF can take that would impose no high cost on any federation, advising that CAF could publicly demand that host countries issue conventional visas, not FIFA Pass priority appointments, which speed up the interview without waiving the bond, to all ticketed fans from every CAF-qualified nation.

Sports lawyer/analyst, Sabinus Ikewuaku, noted that many fans interested in being at the World Cup have been forced to shelve their idea because of the unrealistic conditions they are expected to meet before getting entry visas to the U.S.

He said: “Apart from the unrealistic demand of a $15,000 deposit at the embassy, getting the date for an appointment at the embassy has become another thing.

“One of my clients has been forced to engage the services of agents because things have been made so difficult by the embassy. Unfortunately, CAF has not done anything to help these fans.

“Nigeria’s case is even worse because the Super Eagles did not qualify for the World Cup, and their fans are at the embassy’s mercy. But the World Cup is for everybody irrespective of whether your country qualified or not.”