UK urges FIFA to investigate Argentina over World Cup Falklands banner
After Argentina's World Cup semifinal victory over England, players displayed a banner reading "Las Malvinas son Argentinas," prompting UK officials to call on FIFA to investigate the political gesture.
A British minister has called for FIFA to investigate Argentina's players for displaying a political banner after their 2-1 World Cup semifinal win over England. The banner read "Las Malvinas son Argentinas" ("The Falklands are Argentinian"), which Business Minister Peter Kyle described as an "egregious violation" of FIFA rules banning political symbols on the field of play.
"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 the BBC. "That is now a matter for FIFA. We expect FIFA to undertake an investigation into this." The Prime Minister's Downing Street office backed Kyle's call, with a spokesperson saying, "The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are."
Argentina invaded the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic in 1982, but the UK regained the archipelago after a brief war that killed 649 Argentinians and 255 Britons. Before Wednesday's match in Atlanta, Georgia, Argentine Vice President Victoria Villarruel heightened tensions by calling the English "usurping pirates."
FIFA has not yet commented on the incident. Meanwhile, after the semifinal victory, Argentina's Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Buenos Aires had filed a formal protest over a British warship near the Falkland Islands. Quirno posted on X expressing "the strongest rejection" of the UK's HMS Medway's "unconsulted and illegal" passage through Argentinian territorial waters, alleging a lack of proper notification. The protest note was dated Monday and submitted to the UK embassy in Buenos Aires.
