Argentina await FIFA decision over Falklands banner display

Football’s global governing body FIFA will assess match reports before deciding if they take any action over Argentina’s players holding up a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (The Falklands are Argentine) following their 2-1 victory over England

A British minister had on Thursday called for FIFA to look into the incident following the World Cup semi-final match in Atlanta. FIFA released a statement late Thursday saying they were “assessing the match reports”.

“As is standard procedure, FIFA’s independent disciplinary committee is currently assessing the match reports and considering the relevant circumstances before deciding on potential further steps based on the Fifa disciplinary code,” it said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office Thursday backed the calls by Business Minister Peter Kyle, who called the flag waving an “egregious violation” of FIFA rules, which ban political symbols on the field of play. “The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Argentina invaded the British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic in 1982. But Britain regained the archipelago in a brief war after then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval task force.

“Politics needs to be separate from football. In fact, the World Cup has one of its central tenets that politics is separate from football,” Kyle told BBC television.

Argentina’s football association were fined £20,000 ($27,000) by FIFA in 2014 for players posing in front of a banner with the same message before a friendly against Slovenia. FIFA said the gesture had breached rules on “political action” and team misconduct. Britain occupied the Falklands in the 19th century, but Argentina claims the islands are part of its territory.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei called the stunt “perfectly valid and legitimate.”

“It’s a feeling that exists within all Argentines. The Malvinas are Argentine, we’re going to recover them, and we will do it through diplomatic means,” he told El Observador radio station.

Argentina’s vice president, Victoria Villarruel, upped the tensions ahead of Wednesday’s kick-off by dubbing the English “usurping pirates”. The 1982 conflict ended with the deaths of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

After the World Cup match, Argentina’s Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Buenos Aires had filed a formal protest over a British warship near the Falkland Islands. Quirno voiced on X “the strongest rejection” of Britain’s HMS Medway’s “unconsulted and illegal” passage through Argentine territorial waters.