Exorbitantly priced tickets, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents everywhere, travel that kills your carbon footprint for the rest of your life… Aside from seeing your national team, there’s not much that can make you want to come to the United States to watch the FIFA World Cup. And the Americans did even harder.
According to The Athletic, fans from several countries would have to pay a deposit ranging from 5,000 (4,300 euros) for children to 15,000 dollars (13,000 euros) to obtain a tourist visa to attend the competition. The five countries concerned are Algeria, Cape Verde, Senegal, Tunisia and Ivory Coast.
A spokesperson for the US State Department said in The Athletic “that those who leave the United States in a timely manner before their visa expires will get their money back.”
The so-called “most inclusive World Cup in history”
Worse still (if it could be worse), the players of these selections as well as the official members of the delegation could also be forced to pay this tidy sum. According to the American media, “FIFA is developing contingency plans to circumvent these obligations by providing letters of invitation to the official delegations of the national federations participating in the World Cup. Fifa wants these letters to serve as a waiver of deposits.”
These measures would prove effective, according to the State Department, in “deterring illegal immigration.” In its great goodness, the United States would not apply this measure to holders of existing valid visas. For what must be the “most inclusive World Cup in history”, we are still in a bad situation.
Leave a Reply