Why a football match has reignited old arguments over the Falklands
Would that every potential, or indeed actual, war could be settled by a football match, the world might be a happier, if stranger place. The United States v Iran, for example, provided Donald Trump didn’t lean on Fifa and the Iranian team could be given equal time to prepare for games. The new football-based world would, in fact, probably be dominated by successful soccer superpowers such as Brazil, France, Spain and, let’s not forget, Argentina rather than America, China and Russia. England, or Britain, might be a more middling power. In any case, antique and absurd as it may be, the match between England and Argentina has once again resurrected the question of the Falkland Islands, long claimed by both nations, with the brief war in 1982 costing 907 lives.
Obviously, it has inflamed emotions, though seemingly more on the Argentine side than the English. This is understandable because the Falklands, or Las Malvinas, are rather closer to the South American mainland (300 miles) than to the United Kingdom (8,000 miles).
Times have changed. In 1982 a military junta presiding over a stagnant economy and falling living standards sensed an opportunity when the then British government, led by Margaret Thatcher, was reducing the British presence in the South Atlantic, signalling – wrongly as it turned out – a willingness to abandon the islands if it came to a fight.
This impression was greatly strengthened when a British foreign office minister visited the islands and tried to persuade the Falklanders to accept a shared sovereignty deal with Argentina – perhaps a leaseback whereby formal sovereignty rested with the UK, but the territories were “leased” to Argentina and run by them or jointly in some way. This is strikingly similar to the present proposed Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius, another leftover problem from the dissolution of the British Empire. The Falkland Islands were then more or less defenceless and the dictator, General Leopoldo Galtieri, seized his chance for a small, successful war against the “pirate” British, who, he assumed, were distracted by other, more manifest failings at home.
Now, though, and precisely because of the casualties and sacrifice of British lives in the war, the question of sovereignty is off-limits, even as relations with Argentina have thawed. The Falklands population have a strong veto, and their wishes are clear. The area now has a longer airstrip and is better defended. Javier Milei, the right-wing current president of Argentina, while a nationalist who has reasserted the claim to sovereignty, is more preoccupied with the economy. The harsh truth is that neither the Argentinians nor the British could afford a war – even if the USA under Donald Trump is more ideologically sympathetic to Buenos Aires than it was under Ronald Reagan, a soulmate of Thatcher. The question of sovereignty is as frozen as the average penguin in Port Stanley.
That might well add to Argentinian envy and the risk of war. Drilling has been going in for decades and some say as many as 300 billion barrels of oil lie under those deep, cold seas – even more than current Saudi Arabian reserves. If the benefits of such good fortune were to entirely accrue to the 3,600 or so Falklands residents, it would almost certainly make them the richest people on earth per head of population. It’s a fantastic resource, and more likely to cause another conflict than anything that happens on a football pitch.