Milei says won't attend World Cup final out of superstition

President Javier Milei said Thursday he will not attend the World Cup 2026 final in the United States, preferring to continue watching the football from home.

In an interview Milei told the El Observador radio station that "under no circumstances" would he break his ‘good luck’ ritual of watching World Cup games from the Olivos presidential residence, as he has done in the lead-up to the tournament's final pitting Argentina against Spain on Sunday.

“I’m going to keep watching the matches from Olivos, just like on the first day,” said Milei.

When asked whether his decision to remain on national terrain was due to a superstition, the President replied: “Yes.”

He also explained that he wears a jacket from state energy company YPF as a good-luck charm for the matches.

“On the day of the match against Switzerland, I got really hot. As soon as I took it off, they scored a goal against us, so I put it back on and haven’t taken it off since” during a game, he revealed.

King Felipe VI of Spain will attend the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, in the New York metropolitan area, alongside Queen Letizia and their two daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, the Royal Household in Madrid confirmed on Wednesday.

Argentina, the reigning world champions, are hoping to secure their fourth World Cup star in Sunday’s final.

For Spain, this will be their second chance to win the world title. The first was in South Africa in 2010, when La Roja went on to win the World Cup.

Milei also reiterated that he has offered the use of the Casa Rosada to the national team, should the team win Sunday’s match. 

UK complains

A British minister Thursday called for FIFA to investigate after Argentina's players held up a banner reading "Las Malvinas son Argentinas" after their 2-1 victory over England.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Downing Street office backed the calls by Business Minister Peter Kyle following the World Cup semi-final match.

Kyle called the flag waving 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 Britain regained the archipelago in a brief war after then prime minister Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval taskforce.

Kyle urged football's global governing body FIFA to "thoroughly" investigate the banner incident after Wednesday's match in Atlanta.

"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.

"That is now a matter for FIFA ... We expect FIFA to undertake an investigation into this," he added.

FIFA has not yet commented on the incident.

'Perfectly valid'

Milei, meanwhile, called the stunt "perfectly valid and legitimate."

"It's a feeling that exists within all Argentines," he told El Observador radio station. 

But he urged against mixing politics with sport, adding that "a football match is a football match."

"The Malvinas are Argentine, we're going to recover them, and we will do it through diplomatic means," said Milei.

Prior to the match, Vice-President Victoria Villarruel upped the tensions ahead of Wednesday's kick-off by calling the English "usurping pirates."

The 1982 conflict ended with the deaths of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

– TIMES/AFP