Hyderabad, June 9 -- The United States is turning away the very people it promised to welcome. Less than a week before the FIFA World Cup kicks off on American soil, referees have been barred at airports, players detained for hours, coaches left without visas and ticketed fans locked out - a cascade of entry refusals that has exposed both Washington's indifference to its hosting obligations and FIFA's failure to enforce the guarantees it spent years making.

The governing body that once declared "there is no World Cup" without guaranteed access for all nations has responded to the crisis with a shrug, hiding behind the limits of its own authority while the tournament it sold to the world unravels at the border.

Africa's best referee barr...