FIFA is weighing disciplinary action after Argentina’s post-victory banner reignited a decades-old sovereignty dispute.
Argentine President Javier Milei on Thursday declared that his government is “getting closer every day” to recovering sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, escalating a diplomatic row stemming from Argentina’s politically charged World Cup victory over England earlier in the week.
Writing on X, Milei mocked Britain’s reaction to the albicelestes’ post-match celebrations. “While some are busy throwing tantrums befitting a terminally mononeuronal teenager, we, through the diplomatic route, are getting closer every day to the recovery of the Malvinas Islands, Georgias, and South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime space,” he wrote.
His remarks came in response to a post by Marc Zell, chair of the U.S. Republican Party’s branch in Israel, urging the Trump administration to reconsider long-standing U.S. policy on the Falklands and support Argentina’s sovereignty claim.
During Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal, Argentina’s players unfurled a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (“The Falkland Islands are Argentinian”) after beating England.
British Business Secretary Peter Kyle called the display “entirely inappropriate” and urged FIFA to investigate, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson declared: “The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are.”
Ahead of the match, Argentine Vice President Victoria Villarruel had described Britain as “usurping pirates.”
FIFA said Thursday that its independent disciplinary committee was reviewing the match reports and the circumstances surrounding the incident before deciding whether to open disciplinary proceedings. Argentina’s football association was fined in 2014 after displaying the same slogan before a friendly match against Slovenia.
The Falklands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, have remained at the center of a sovereignty dispute for decades. Britain and Argentina fought a brief war over the South Atlantic archipelago in 1982, after which London remained in control of the islands.
Milei also defended Argentina’s players, calling their banner a legitimate expression of national feeling. “The Malvinas are Argentine, we are going to recover them and we are going to do it at the diplomatic level,” the president told Radio El Observador.
Just a day earlier, Milei had urged Argentines not to mix football with the sovereignty dispute, dismissing such displays as “cheap gestures of patriotism.”