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Argentine President Javier Milei considered it "valid and lawful" this Thursday for the national team players to display the "The Malvinas are Argentine" banner after defeating England the day before, while veterans of the 1982 war thanked the team for their gesture.
The Argentine players displayed the banner on the pitch at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta after defeating the English 2-1. The gesture sparked a protest from the British government, which asked FIFA to investigate a possible violation of rules prohibiting political messages on the playing field.
"It is a sentiment that is within all Argentines and it is perfectly valid and lawful that they want to express themselves and do so," Milei defended in an interview with Radio El Observador.
He asked, however, not to interpret the gesture as part of the diplomatic dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the South Atlantic archipelago.
"A soccer match is a soccer match," Milei said, recalling that both coach Lionel Scaloni and veterans of the 1982 war for sovereignty over the islands—in which 649 Argentines and 255 British died—had said the same before the match.
"The Malvinas are Argentine, we are going to recover them and we will do it through diplomatic channels," he continued.
On Wednesday, after the victory which held significant symbolic weight for Argentines given this context, the president had asked not to mix soccer with the territorial dispute and rejected "cheap displays of patriotism."
For their part, veterans of the Malvinas War expressed gratitude for the triumph and the team's gesture: "Thank you players, coaching staff, and collaborators. The Malvinas are Argentine, just like you," wrote the Islas Malvinas Center for War Veterans in the city of La Plata.
"It gave me goosebumps because it is a national sentiment," veteran Esteban Tries noted in radio statements regarding the banner, adding that he felt "very represented" by the national team.
Veteran and technical director Omar De Felippe wrote after the victory: "Today I only want to thank these boys for the enormous joy and the immense caress to the soul they gave us."
"Sport never changes history, but sometimes it helps to heal emotions that remain very much alive," he added.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticized the players' action on Thursday: "The World Cup may not be ours, but the islands definitely are."
The Argentine national team will play Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday.
[Publicidad]