After clawing their way back from a one-goal deficit and defeating England 2-1 in Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal, a large group of Argentina players celebrated on the pitch with a banner that read “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” — Spanish for “The Falkland Islands are Argentinian.”
The slogan alludes to a long-running dispute over an archipelago 300 miles off the southernmost tip of Argentina that erupted in violence during the Falklands War of 1982 — a 74-day conflict that claimed the lives of 255 British soldiers, 649 Argentines and three island residents.
Now, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is endorsing calls for an investigation by FIFA, soccer’s international governing body. Ed Davey, the leader of the country’s Liberal Democrat party, is going one step further, insisting that “the Argentine players who celebrated with the ‘Falklands are Argentine’ banner must be barred from [Sunday’s] final” against Spain.
Upending the planet’s biggest soccer match because of a banner might seem drastic — but there’s precedent for it. Article 34.3 of FIFA’s 2026 World Cup rules prohibits players from displaying any political messages or slogans before, during or after a match. In 2024, two Spanish stars, Rodri and Álvaro Morata, were banned for one match each after celebrating their victory at that summer’s European Championship tournament by chanting “Gibraltar is Spanish.” Gibraltar is also a British overseas territory.
“The World Cup has one of its central tenets that politics is separate from football,” U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle told the BBC. “I expect FIFA to do its investigation thoroughly … because it was such an egregious violation of the rules.”
Here’s why “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” is such a big deal.
England and Argentina have history — lots of it
It’s never just about soccer when England and Argentina meet on the pitch — or at least it’s not for the Argentines. Their geopolitical enmity dates back to the early 19th century, when Britain repeatedly invaded the Spanish colony of Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina) during the Napoleonic Wars. Britain initially claimed the Falklands in 1774, then reasserted its rule in 1832. Settlers arrived in the 1840s. In 1982, Argentina’s authoritarian government invaded the archipelago and tried to seize it — or, in its view, reclaim it — by force; it was repelled by U.K. forces and ultimately surrendered. Large protests erupted against the Argentinian regime, hastening its downfall and the country’s subsequent democratization. Since then, Buenos Aires has maintained that “las Malvinas” belong to Argentina. But the Falklands have remained a self-governing U.K. territory, and in 2013, 99.8% of Falkland Island referendum participants — who mostly descend from British settlers — voted to keep it that way.
As Starmer’s spokesperson told Sky News on Wednesday, “the World Cup might not be ours, but the Falklands definitely are.”
For decades, Argentines have been using the Falklands as motivation whenever their team faces England. In the 1986 World Cup quarterfinals, Argentina legend Diego Maradona scored both goals in his team’s 2-1 triumph over the Three Lions — the first among the most controversial ever, the second among the most beautiful. Maradona later wrote in his memoir that the goals were “revenge … for everything that happened,” explaining that he and his teammates “knew a lot of Argentinian kids died (in the Falklands), shot down like little birds.”
Today, fans and players bounce up and down after matches and chant “El que no salta, Es un inglés!” — “Whoever doesn’t jump is English!” In the dressing room, the squad sings “Por Malvinas, por el Diego, por la ultima de Leo” — “For the Malvinas, for Diego, for Leo’s last one (tournament).” Other fan favorites include lyrics like “the boys from Malvinas who I’ll never forget” and “I haven’t forgotten the Falklands, you f***ing English.”
England has responded in kind. After a foul-tempered quarterfinal in 1966, England manager Alf Ramsey described Argentina’s players as “animals,” and the teams’ two previous World Cup meetings prior to Wednesday’s clash — in 1998 and 2002 — were equally contentious, with a David Beckham red card and various accusations of foul play.
A banner is seen on the pitch following Argentina’s 2-1 win during the FIFA World Cup 2026 semifinal match between England and Argentina at Atlanta Stadium on July 15, 2026, in Atlanta.
(Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
The result has been a “strange, quasi-Oedipal relationship that manifests in football, each game adding new layers of intrigue and resentment,” as Jonathan Wilson, the author of Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina, recently told the Athletic.
This year’s semifinal was just the latest installment in that long-running psychological saga — as much as Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni might have insisted beforehand that it was “a football match [and] that’s all there is to it.”
“It is a sad part of our history for everyone involved in that chapter,” Argentina midfielder Leandro Paredes told BBC Sport after the game. “And it hurts. We knew we were playing for them too. For all the people, for our entire nation. I believe we did it in the best possible way.”
What’s next
Wednesday’s “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” banner was initially brandished by fans in the stands at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. But after the game, several Argentina players took the banner and unfurled it on the field. According to the Athletic, midfielder Giovani Lo Celso initially held it with defender Nicolás Otamendi.
Yet by the time the team gathered at the byline to celebrate in front of its fans, a much larger group of players was standing behind the banner and jumping.
A ban for Sunday’s final is unlikely. The 2024 Spanish ban was issued by UEFA, the governing body of European soccer — not FIFA. In 2014, FIFA instead fined the Argentine Football Association £20,000 when its players held up a similar banner ahead of a 2014 friendly against Slovenia.
On Thursday, a FIFA spokesperson told the Daily Mail that “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.”
FIFA’s stadium code of conduct prohibits “any materials, including but not limited to banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia, that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature,” while the International Football Association Board (IFAB) insists that “equipment must not have any political, religious or personal slogans, statements or images.”
“For any offence the player and/or the team will be sanctioned by the competition organiser, national football association or by FIFA,” according to the IFAB.
