Canada rejected 71% of the visa applications filed by Indian citizens to watch the 2026 FIFA World Cup, CTV News reported on Wednesday.
Of the 1,225 Indians who applied for the visa, only 355 were approved. Indians were the fourth-largest group to file Canadian visa applications for the football world cup, after Ghana, Colombia and Pakistan.
Canada did not have a special visa category for the world cup. Instead, for tracking purposes, applicants were asked to mention in their regular visitor visa forms that they planned to attend the tournament, CTV News reported.
Canada is co-hosting the FIFA World Cup with the United States and Mexico. The 13 matches in Canada are being held in Toronto and Vancouver. The tournament began on June 11 and will conclude on July 19.
Between November 14 and March 31, the Canadian immigration authorities processed nearly 17,000 visitor applications that were related to the world cup from more than 160 countries and territories. Only 41% of them were approved, the news outlet reported citing data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Citizens of countries that need an electronic travel authorisation to enter Canada had a 96% approval rate as compared to 32% for those requiring a visa.
The highest number of visa applications (1,725) came from the citizens of Ghana. Less than 11% of the applications were accepted, CTV News reported. The second-highest number of applications (1,630) came from Colombian citizens and 69% of them were approved.
Pakistan, the third-largest group of applicants (1,250), had an approval rate of just under 9%.
Edited by Sara Varghese.
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