UK minister urges FIFA to investigate Argentina over World Cup Falklands banner

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Argentine players display the Falklands banner after the game. Photo: Getty Images

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A British minister Thursday called for FIFA to investigate after Argentina’s players held up a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (The Falklands are Argentine) after their 2-1 victory over England.

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office backed the calls by Business Minister Peter Kyle following the World Cup semi-final match.

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Kyle called the flag waving an “egregious violation” of FIFA rules which ban political symbols on the field of play.

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“The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

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Argentina invaded the British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic in 1982.

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But Britain regained the archipelago in a brief war after then prime minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval taskforce.

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Kyle urged football’s global governing body FIFA to “thoroughly” investigate the banner incident after Wednesday’s match in Atlanta.

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

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“That is now a matter for FIFA … We expect FIFA to undertake an investigation into this,” he added.

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FIFA has not yet commented on the incident.

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Britain occupied the Falklands in the 19th century, but Argentina claims the islands are part of its territory.

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Argentina’s vice president, Victoria Villarruel, upped the tensions ahead of Wednesday’s kick-off by calling the English “usurping pirates”.

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The 1982 conflict ended with the deaths of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

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Following their World Cup semi-final victory, Argentina’s foreign minister said Buenos Aires had filed a formal protest over a British warship near the Falkland Islands.

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Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno posted on X to express “the strongest rejection” of the United Kingdom’s HMS Medway’s “unconsulted and illegal” passage through Argentine territorial waters, alleging a lack of proper notification.

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Quirno said the Medway, which is based in the Falkland Islands, was accused of violating bilateral agreements in a July 13-dated diplomatic note of protest submitted to the UK embassy in Buenos Aires.

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