A British minister has called on FIFA to investigate after Argentina's players displayed a banner reading "Las Malvinas son Argentinas" ("The Falklands are Argentinian") following their 2-1 World Cup semifinal victory over England.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Downing Street office backed the calls by Business Minister Peter Kyle on Thursday, a day after the semifinal. Kyle described the flag-waving as an "egregious violation" of FIFA rules, which ban political symbols on the field of play.

"The World Cup might not be ours, but the Falkland Islands definitely are," a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Argentina invaded the British overseas territory in the South Atlantic in 1982, but the UK regained the archipelago in a brief war after then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval force.

Kyle urged football's global governing body to "thoroughly" investigate the banner incident after Wednesday's match in Atlanta, Georgia. "Politics needs to be separate from football. In fact, the World Cup has one of its central tenets that politics is separate from football," he told BBC television.

FIFA has not yet commented on the incident. Britain occupied the Falklands in the 19th century, but Argentina claims the islands are part of its territory.

Argentine Vice President Victoria Villarruel escalated tensions before kickoff by calling the English "usurping pirates." The 1982 conflict ended with the deaths of 649 Argentinians and 255 Britons.

Source: www.aljazeera.com