{"id":694904,"date":"2026-07-16T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694904\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:51:07","slug":"the-falklands-are-ours-no-10-backs-calls-for-fifa-investigation-into-argentina-players-banner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/694904\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Falklands are ours’: No 10 backs calls for Fifa investigation into Argentina players’ banner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Downing Street has backed calls for Fifa to investigate Argentina’s players who celebrated their World Cup semi-final victory over England by brandishing a banner about the Falkland Islands<\/a> on the pitch. <\/p>\n

In response to the post-match stunt, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said: \u201cThe World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur commitment to the Falklands will never waver.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world football governing body<\/a> bans political gestures. <\/p>\n

Its code of conduct prohibits “banners, flags, flyers, apparel and other paraphernalia that are of a political, \u200boffensive, and\/or discriminatory nature” inside stadiums.<\/p>\n

No 10’s official said any potential action is a \u201cmatter for Fifa\u201d, but asked whether the prime minister agrees with his Cabinet minister that there should be an investigation, they replied: \u201cI would echo that position.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2014, Fifa fined the Argentine Football Association \u00a320,000 after a friendly against Slovenia because players held up a banner with the same sentiment. <\/p>\n

Argentina boss Lionel Scaloni had said before the game he did not want the fixture to become about the conflict over the British overseas territory.<\/p>\n

However, after his side came from 1-0 down with five minutes left to win 2-1 to reach a second successive World Cup final, players held up a banner that read “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” which translates to “The Falkland Islands are Argentinian”.<\/p>\n

Argentina fans hold a banner with the words “The Malvinas are Argentinian”. Credit: AP<\/p>\n

Argentina vice-president Victoria Villarruel had described England as “invaders” and “usurping pirates” in the build-up to the fixture, and tweeted a victory message at full-time by saying, “it wasn\u2019t just another match” alongside a video of what appeared to be Argentinian soldiers.<\/p>\n

She also shared a photograph of the team holding the banner. <\/p>\n

Earlier, senior minister Peter Kyle has said that Argentina\u2019s players\u2019 behaviour was “entirely inappropriate.” <\/p>\n

Asked about Argentina\u2019s players brandishing the banner, Business Secretary Mr Kyle said on BBC Breakfast: “Politics needs to be separate from football, in fact, the World Cup has one of its central tenets that politics is separate from football.”<\/p>\n

He said that “that is now a matter for Fifa”, adding that he expects Fifa to investigate “thoroughly”.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Downing Street agrees with Mr Kyle\u2019s characterisation of the behaviour as an \u201cegregious violation\u201d of the rules, she added: \u201cAny action taken is a matter for Fifa, I\u2019ll leave it for them. I\u2019d point you to the Business Secretary\u2019s words this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political tensions linger between Argentina and Great Britain<\/a> over the Falkland Islands, which boiled over into conflict in 1982.<\/p>\n

Argentina has repeatedly claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which are about 8,000 miles from Britain and 300 miles from mainland Argentina.<\/p>\n

From Westminster to Washington DC – our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below… <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Downing Street has backed calls for Fifa to investigate Argentina’s players who celebrated their World Cup semi-final victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-694904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}