By Andrew Warshaw
December 28 – The British government at one point considered pulling its nations out of the 1982 World Cup because of the Falklands War with Argentina, it emerged today.
Released official papers said Margaret Thatcher, prime minister at the time, was ultimately warned the move would be counter-productive.
England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all participated in the 1982 finals in Spain but a few months before the tournament and days after the Argentine invasion of the Falklands, then sports minister Neil Macfarlane issued a strongly worded directive.
“I urge no sporting contact with Argentina at representative, club or individual level on British soil,” Macfarlane advised. “This policy applies equally to all sporting fixtures in Argentina.”
In an even more forceful follow-up letter to Thatcher, he added: “Up until a week or 10 days ago I have taken the line that it was up to the Football Authorities to decide whether they should participate (in the World Cup).”
“However, the loss of British life ….has had a marked effect on some international footballers and some administrators. They feel revulsion at the prospect of playing in the same tournament as Argentina at this time.”
In the early 1980s sporting boycotts were common with a US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and a tit-for-tat response by the Soviet Union four years later.
But with FIFA unlikely to back any move for Argentina to pull out of the 1982 World Cup, then Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong himself wrote to Thatcher suggesting that a British withdrawal would provide “an opportunity to make propaganda: the United Kingdom, not Argentina, would be the country set apart.”
In the end, there was never any chance of any of the three qualified British sides meeting defending champions Argentina. Scotland were knocked out in the first round an England and Northern Ireland at the second group stage along with the
Argentines.
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