England Fans Blocked from Bringing Submarine Flag to World Cup

The World Cup is used to dealing with red cards. Red-and-white flags? That’s usually the easy part.

Not this time.

A group of England fans from Barrow-in-Furness have been blocked from taking their St George’s flag into World Cup stadiums after Fifa ruled that a small submarine silhouette on the design breached its rules on military imagery.

The flag, a standard England cross, carried the Barrow club badge and an extra outline of a submarine – a nod to the Cumbrian town’s long association with shipbuilding and naval vessels. It was meant as a proud slice of home on foreign soil.

Instead, it ran straight into a wall of regulations.

When the supporters submitted the design for approval, as all fans must do if they want to display flags inside World Cup venues, Fifa rejected it on the grounds that it included “imagery of weapons or military (submarine)”.

Those words came in a written response seen by the BBC, which added: “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.”

For Barrow fan John Little, the ruling landed somewhere between frustrating and farcical.

He called the decision “harsh” and struggled to see how the submarine could be lumped in with more obvious symbols of violence. “I could understand like guns and knives and what have you, but not a submarine,” he said, capturing the mood among the group.

Then came the line that will resonate with anyone who feels football bureaucracy has lost its sense of proportion: “It's not like you can go down to the local Walmart and buy a submarine is it.”

Little, who is travelling to Boston for England’s match against Ghana on Tuesday, admitted he was stunned when the rejection came through. “I couldn't believe it really, it's a little bit harsh that they've done it for something like that,” he said, adding that fellow supporters had branded the move “ridiculous”.

The ruling leaves the Barrow contingent with a choice. Accept Fifa’s offer, tape over or otherwise cover the submarine, and resubmit. Or leave the flag – and a piece of their town’s identity – outside the gates.

For now, pragmatism is winning. Little confirmed they will try to alter the design to meet the regulations and send it back in.

The World Cup loves to market itself as a festival of colour, culture and local pride. In Barrow’s case, that pride happens to come in the shape of a submarine. Whether that symbol is allowed to surface inside a stadium now depends on how much of it survives under a strip of tape.