{"id":4648,"date":"2026-06-10T13:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/soccer-fans-voice-support-for-chinese-referee\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T13:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T13:06:22","slug":"soccer-fans-voice-support-for-chinese-referee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/soccer-fans-voice-support-for-chinese-referee\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer fans voice support for Chinese referee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>2026-06-10 13:06:19<\/b><br \/>\n<BR>Chinese soccer fans are throwing their support behind a referee ahead of the World Cup.<BR><br \/>\nChina hasn&#8217;t qualified for the upcoming tournament in North America, and fans in the country are now showing their support for the country&#8217;s top referee, Ma Ning, instead.<BR><br \/>\nMa-related threads on RedNote and other Chinese social media platforms have been developing huge traction in recent weeks, and the referee has even attracted sponsorship deals from major Chinese brands, such as the tech firm Lenovo and electronics giant Hisense.<BR><br \/>\nOne RedNote user wrote on the platform: &#8220;We have Ma Ning, who do you have?&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nAnother user of the platform said: &#8220;Other countries get to watch their own teams play, while we&#8217;ll watch our referee issue cards.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nMa is embarking on the second World Cup of his career, after previously officiating in Qatar in 2022, and he&#8217;s currently in a ten-day officials&#8217; camp in Miami, where he&#8217;s been joined by assistant referee Zhou Fei and video assistant referee Fu Ming.<BR><br \/>\nMa has also teased his journey to the World Cup on social media.<BR><br \/>\nHe captioned one post: &#8220;I take up this appointment with confidence and composure. World Cup, here we come.&#8221;<BR><br \/>\nOn the flip side, Somali referee Omar Artan was recently banned from entering the United States ahead of the World Cup.<BR><br \/>\nThe 34-year-old referee was denied entry at Miami International Airport earlier this week, despite holding a diplomatic passport and a single-entry US visa.<BR><br \/>\nBut after arriving back in Somalia, Artan &#8211; who was named Africa&#8217;s referee of the year in 2025 &#8211; has been philosophical about the situation in the US.<BR><br \/>\nHe said: &#8220;I&#8217;d like to thank the officials, ministers, MPs and everyone. I want to thank my country and people for their support. The encouragement I received here, I know I&#8217;ll get more support outside [the airport].<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;Everything is pre-destined. Fifa supported me well and were in touch with me until I reached Mogadishu.<BR><br \/>\n&#8220;I promise you that I&#8217;ll be officiating you in the next World Cup. Somalia, everywhere, I&#8217;m letting you know.&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Visit Bang Bizarre (main website) <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><script src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player\/xtbac.js\" data-video=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2026-06-10 13:06:19 Chinese soccer fans are throwing their support behind a referee ahead of the World Cup. China hasn&#8217;t qualified for the upcoming tournament in North America, and fans in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bizarre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4650,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions\/4650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bangbizarre.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}