Downing Street has backed calls for Fifa to investigate, with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman saying: “The World Cup may not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are. Our commitment to the Falklands will never waver.”

Argentine President Javier Milei called the players’ action “understandable” and “valid,” according to media reports.

But he also made it clear, in statements to Radio El Observador, that “the things that happen on the field are not part of diplomacy.”

“Indeed, the Malvinas are Argentine, we are going to recover them, and we are going to do it in the diplomatic field, acting with intelligence,” he stated.

Argentina, governed at the time by a military junta headed by General Leopoldo Galtieri, invaded the islands, located 300 miles off Argentina’s east coast, in 1982.

The conflict, which lasted 74 days between April and June 1982, caused the death of 649 Argentine soldiers and 255 British soldiers. Three people from the islands also died.

In 2013, the people of the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly to remain an overseas territory of the United Kingdom.

Of the 1,517 votes cast in the two-day referendum, with a turnout of more than 90%, 1,513 were in favor, while only three votes were against.