The Football Association sent a legal cease and desist letter to supermarket chain Iceland on the day England faced Argentina in the World Cup semi-final, demanding the removal of a marketing campaign that renamed three stores to ‘England’ in the home towns of Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Jordan Pickford. The letter, which emerged after England’s 2-1 defeat in Atlanta, told Iceland to abandon the brief campaign and take down all promotional material, claiming customers might be led to believe there was a commercial relationship with the FA.
Iceland said it was “shocked and deeply disappointed” by the timing. “At the very moment the nation could have been coming together to support England on the biggest stage of all, we were being told to take everything down,” a spokesperson said. “That’s something we find difficult to understand.” The chain insisted there was no intention to suggest a commercial link, and said the FA believed the image of the England team may have been negatively impacted. The FA ordered Iceland to provide written confirmation of compliance by 4pm on July 17th.
“FA sent Iceland a cease and desist over a World Cup stunt as Argentina players held a Falklands banner”
The controversy unfolded against a backdrop of heightened diplomatic tension. Argentina’s players held up a banner reading ‘Las Malvinas’ – “the Falklands are Argentine” – during the match. President Javier Milei said the players’ actions were “understandable” and that at worst they would face a £20,000 economic sanction from Fifa. “We are going to recover the Malvinas, and we will do so through diplomatic means, with intelligence in our actions,” Milei said. Hours after the match, Argentina’s foreign minister Pablo Quirno issued a “strong rejection” of the movements of HMS Medway, a Royal Navy patrol vessel normally based in the Falkland Islands, calling it a “military incursion”.
Argentina’s victory – secured by Messi’s “gilded feet”, as one commentary put it – has not changed the light in which the team is seen internationally. New York magazine has dubbed Argentina the “surprise villains” of the tournament, while The New York Times reports that other nations hope they will lose. For a country that was easy to love four years ago in Qatar, the shift is stark. Under Milei, Argentines continue to suffer economically, and the national squad offers little in the way of tactics or technique, but its grit remains boundless. As one paper noted, “One must suffer. Without suffering, it’s not worth it.”
