It’s a football field, not a garden party – passions run high, the language is spicy, the chants often vulgar. But usually everybody involved knows where the line is, what is appropriate, even if near the knuckle, and what is simply not OK. So this is surely the least controversial of all the hot takes flying around about last night’s match: Argentina’s players dragging a political statement into the World Cup is outrageous and unforgivable.
Yes, politics has intruded on this World Cup already, thanks to Donald Trump and his administration. But this was different, because this was from the players themselves. Technically, they broke the rules, but even worse than that, morally, ethically, they showed themselves to be thoroughly bad sports. This is not what football is about. They have polluted the spirit of the game and all it stands for. They might have won the match, but they have lost in ways far more important, profound and far-reaching.
That the Argentine team pulled such a tasteless move just after breaking our nation’s hearts only adds insult to injury. They scored the dramatic deciding goal in the 92nd minute, meaning England were out of the tournament and would have been fully aware of the national devastation this would cause. Any notion of being dignified winners, noble in triumph, went out the window as they shamefully seized this moment to rub salt into our raw wounds. These opportunists celebrated by holding up a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, which translates as “The Falklands are Argentine”.
The complicated sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the south-west Atlantic Ocean, has been raging since 1833. It escalated into a 74-day war between Britain and Argentina in 1982, leading to the deaths of 655 Argentine and 255 British soldiers. Three Falkland Island residents also died. But this was a football match, not a high-powered meeting between world leaders or even a political discussion TV show. This was not the place to bring up the dispute. Imagine the families of those who lost their lives, relaxing and enjoying the event and then being catapulted back into a deep trauma without warning, or the chance to prepare themselves.
Even more mind-boggling is that Argentina have already been reprimanded for this behaviour before. Back in 2014, Fifa fined their Football Association £20,000 after players held up a banner with an identical message before a friendly against Slovenia. It was deemed that the action had clearly broken rules on political action and team misconduct. No excuses would have made any difference anyway, of course, but this means they can’t even say they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong. Holding up that banner, bringing divisive political discourse into a sporting arena, was a wilful, defiant move. Two fingers up to everyone watching around the world, to the governing bodies, to the fans, to the other players.
Before the game, manager Lionel Scaloni had vowed that his team would keep the political conflict separate.
“The reality is that this is a football match,” he said, “I can’t mix things up, especially out of respect for what happened so many years ago. It was a very sad period in our history, and there isn’t much we can do about it; that’s the reality. Things are happening elsewhere in the world, and we criticise the existence of war. We certainly remember those people, of course. But it is a football match – we shouldn’t confuse the two.”
His words ring incredibly empty today.
Argentina now face the prospect of disciplinary action from Fifa, but so what? They have been through this before, paid a heavy price, been castigated and it made absolutely no difference because they repeated exactly the same behaviour years later.
A bold, drastic move is needed that will truly teach them a lesson, and also serve as a warning to any other teams tempted in the future to merge the two worlds as inappropriately as this. Two strikes, in a matter as serious as this, and they should be out. Automatically eliminated from the tournament without being able to compete in the final on Sunday. Fifa needs to put its money where its mouth is, and show that it will not accept this appalling behaviour from any team. Harsh, yes, but fair. Otherwise, the beautiful game will only become increasingly ugly.
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