England Fans Face Flag Controversy at World Cup

The World Cup loves colour, noise and flags. Just not this one.

A group of England supporters from Barrow have been told they cannot display their St George’s flag because it carries an image of a submarine – a symbol of their town and, according to Fifa, a breach of its rules.

The fans had submitted their flag for approval, as all supporters must do if they want to hang banners inside World Cup stadiums. Their design was simple enough: the red cross of St George, the Barrow club badge and the silhouette of a submarine, a nod to the Cumbrian town’s long and proud shipbuilding history.

Then came the reply. Rejected.

Fifa, in correspondence seen by the BBC, ruled that the flag fell foul of its policy on “imagery of weapons or military”, explicitly citing the submarine. Under tournament regulations, anything judged to depict weaponry or military hardware is not allowed inside venues.

For Barrow fan John Little, the decision landed somewhere between surreal and infuriating.

“I couldn't believe it really, it's a little bit harsh that they've done it for something like that,” he said. “It's not like you can go down to the local Walmart and buy a submarine is it.”

He accepts the principle of a line being drawn. Just not here.

“I could understand like guns and knives and what have you, but not a submarine,” he said, echoing the reaction of many who have seen the flag and the ruling. “People are just saying how ridiculous it is that they're not allowing the flag.”

Little is heading to Boston for England’s match against Ghana on Tuesday and had hoped to drape the Barrow banner inside the stadium, as fans from across the country so often do to mark their patch of territory on the global stage. Instead, the group now face a choice: alter a symbol of home, or leave it behind.

Fifa has offered a compromise of sorts. The governing body told the group they could cover up the submarine and resubmit the application, indicating the flag would then be approved. Little says they will try to do exactly that, even if it means literally masking a piece of Barrow’s identity to get through the turnstiles.

In its message to the fans, Fifa wrote: “The application was rejected because the item includes imagery of weapons or military (submarine). These are not permitted under FIFA policy. We would be happy to approve, if you were willing and able to submit again with the imagery covered up.”

So the St George’s cross will probably still make it into the ground. The Barrow submarine, though – a fixture of a town and its club – will stay out of sight, edited out by a global tournament that insists the game can be separated from any hint of the military, even when it’s painted on a piece of cloth.