The decision to refuse Ghana midfielder Thomas Partey entry to Canada has turned attention to a feature of Canadian immigration law that surprises many travellers: a person can be barred without ever being convicted of a crime.

Partey, 32, faces trial on seven counts of rape and one of sexual assault at Southwark Crown Court in London and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. No court has found him culpable, and his trial is more than a year away. Yet under Canada’s rules, the charges alone can be enough to keep him out.

THE STATUTE

The governing provision is Section 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Section 36 establishes when criminal activity may render a person inadmissible to Canada, addressing both convictions in Canada and convictions or acts committed outside Canada. It separates two tiers: “criminality” and the more severe “serious criminality.”

The pivotal distinction for a case like Partey’s is between conduct alleged inside Canada and conduct alleged abroad. For domestic matters, the bar is high. Anything short of a conviction on matters in Canada will have no impact on immigration status, although the underlying facts may have repercussions in certain cases. For acts said to have occurred outside Canada, the threshold is markedly lower, and a conviction is not required.

“REASONABLE GROUNDS TO BELIEVE”

The operative standard for foreign conduct is not proof beyond reasonable doubt but a far weaker evidentiary test. An officer does not need a conviction to find someone inadmissible; an arrest, charges, or even intelligence reports can be enough if they create “reasonable grounds to believe” the person committed a crime that would be serious in Canada.

In practice, that means an immigration officer assesses whether the alleged act, if proven, would amount to an offence under Canadian law. The relevant category applies when there is credible evidence that a person committed a criminal act outside Canada but was not convicted, where the act is a criminal offence where it occurred, and the equivalent offence in Canada would be indictable or punishable by a term of at least ten years.

WHY SEXUAL OFFENCES CLEAR THE BAR

Allegations of rape and sexual assault fall comfortably within the serious-criminality tier. Under IRPA Section 36(1), a foreign national may be inadmissible if they committed an act outside Canada that could be punishable in Canada by 10 or more years. Sexual assault offences under the Canadian Criminal Code carry maximum penalties well beyond that floor, so the equivalency analysis is straightforward. The allegations against Partey, said to have taken place between 2021 and 2022 when he was an Arsenal player, are precisely the kind of foreign conduct the provision is designed to capture.

NOT JUST VISA APPLICANTS

The reach of Section 36 extends across every category of entry, not merely formal visa applications. Applicants for a visa, study permit, work permit or Electronic Travel Authorization may be refused entry if they have a criminal record or pending charges equivalent to an offence in Canada. That breadth is why even citizens of visa-exempt countries, who normally enter on a simple electronic authorisation, can be stopped. The close immigration ties between Britain and Canada, including visa-free short stays and reciprocal mobility schemes, do not displace the inadmissibility rules.

THE LIMITED REMEDIES

Canadian law does provide routes around inadmissibility, but they are discretionary and ill-suited to a live, unresolved case. The principal mechanism is the Temporary Resident Permit, which can authorise entry where there is a compelling justification that outweighs the risk. Criminal rehabilitation, the more permanent remedy, is generally unavailable until proceedings conclude and a qualifying period of crime-free conduct has passed. With Partey’s trial now set to start on June 8, 2027 and the player on bail subject to conditions, neither path offers a quick fix.

THE ENGLAND CLASH IN THE BACKGROUND

The principle illustrated by the refusal applies to any traveller arriving at a Canadian port of entry with serious charges outstanding abroad, but the timing sharpens its edge for Ghana. The Black Stars were drawn into Group L alongside England, Croatia and Panama, opening against Panama in Toronto on June 17 before meeting England on June 23, a fixture that now carries an unmistakable subplot: a player sidelined by charges laid in an English courtroom, unavailable against the very nation where the allegations arose.

Because the 2026 tournament is co-hosted across the United States, Canada and Mexico, the geography matters as much as the law. The England fixture is staged at Boston Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on US soil and therefore outside Canadian jurisdiction.

A player barred from Canada under IRPA is not automatically barred from the United States, where entry turns on separate American visa determinations. Partey has been named in Carlos Queiroz’s final 26-man squad and is expected to start for Ghana against England, leaving open the prospect that the player kept out of Ghana’s opener could yet feature days later.

That same fixture has generated a parallel controversy off the pitch. The English Football Association is reportedly in internal discussions over whether to advise its players to avoid the customary pre-match handshake with Partey, with no final decision taken by the FA or England’s coaching staff.

According to The Times, the FA is reviewing whether specific instructions should be issued to players regarding the pre-match greeting ahead of the Group L fixture. The handshake, long treated as a symbol of mutual respect, has become a flashpoint precisely because the legal proceedings remain unresolved and Partey is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Ghana have framed the episode as gamesmanship. The Ghana Football Association has brushed aside reports that some England players could refuse to shake hands with Partey, with communications director Henry Asante Twum saying the association remains focused on its World Cup objectives and will not be distracted by what he described as external “mind games.” Asante Twum added that any formal concerns from the English FA would properly be directed to FIFA as the competition organiser rather than to the GFA.

That uncertainty hangs over both camps as the group unfolds. England arrive among the tournament favourites; Ghana must plan for a key midfielder whose availability is dictated less by form or fitness than by which host country is checking his passport, and whose presence on the pitch has already become a matter of diplomatic delicacy.

WHERE FIFA STANDS

Football’s governing body has consistently positioned itself outside the immigration question. FIFA says it plays no part in host-country entry decisions, telling US broadcaster NPR that it is not involved in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudications. That stance places the responsibility for admitting or refusing players squarely with the three host governments and their respective border agencies, not with the tournament organiser.

The distinction has become consequential because the 2026 edition is the first World Cup spread across three countries with separate immigration regimes. FIFA has secured assurances that players, coaches, match officials and accredited team personnel will be granted entry to the United States through special exemptions, including carve-outs in US travel-ban proclamations for athletes and their support staff. But those guarantees are country-specific and do not bind Canada, where admissibility is determined independently under IRPA. A federation’s squad selection, in other words, does not override a host state’s sovereign control of its border.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has repeatedly cast the tournament as the most inclusive in the competition’s history, promising that the world will be welcomed. Yet the organisation’s simultaneous insistence that it cannot interfere in visa matters underscores the limits of that promise: where a player faces serious criminal charges abroad, the welcome extended by football’s authorities ends at the immigration desk.

Canadian authorities rarely disclose the precise grounds for an individual refusal, and officials have not publicly detailed the basis for rejecting Partey’s application. But the architecture of Section 36, and the nature of the charges, point to the inadmissibility provisions as the controlling law.