Fifa received much criticism for its decision to uphold a ban on the England and Wales football teams wearing poppies during matches.
Its rules disallow the wearing of political symbols, Fifa said, and "accepting such initiatives would open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football".
For most in the UK that explanation didn't seem to be good enough. Neither were the other ways Fifa said it would allow the England team to pay tribute to servicemen and women including the laying of a wreath, holding a minute's silence, wearing black armbands and sporting embroidered poppies on their pre-match kit.
Prime Minister David Cameron called the ban "outrageous" and argued that "the idea that wearing a poppy to remember those who have given their lives for our freedom is a political act is absurd".
His sentiments werw echoed by Jim Boyce, Britain's Fifa vice-president, who dismissed claims that the symbol would cause offence.
"Personally, I think there has to be a bit of common sense used when requests like this come in," he said. "I don't think it would offend anybody to have a poppy on the shirts."
As for the public, from press coverage surrounding the debate it seems that the vast majority of people in England and Wales agree with the FA that the poppies should be worn. And in our own poll on the issue, the large majority of respondents said that Fifa was wrong.
In the end Fifa relented, and has said it will now allow England's players to wear the poppy on their armbands.
But the debate on the political nature of the poppy does have another side - in particular those who choose to wear an entirely different, and yet very similar, symbol of their lapels on Remembrance Day.
The white poppy movement was established by the Women's Co-operative Guild in 1933 as an alternative to the (then-emergent) tradition of wearing a red corn poppy to honour dead and injured service people. Since then it has grown, and occasionally waned, to the point where now around 50,000 are sold every year in the UK, Canada and New Zealand.
The aim of the white poppy was not to offend wearers of the red poppy, but to support the cause of an end to all war.
The people who now run the campaign, the Peace Pledge Union, say it also stands as an alternative to what they see as an overly-corporate campaign divorced from its original message.
"At one time the red poppy was a little flower that people used to buy to support the injured service people," Jan Melichar, coordinator of the white poppy campaign, told The Huffington Post UK. "Now the British Legion is a vast organisation, it's become its corporate logo and it's lost all of that original impetus it used to have."
"It trades on the death and suffering of soldiers … and underneath it it's a justification of war as an institution," he added. "It creates a deep feeling that war is inevitable. It may be for all I know. But I'd like it not to be. And I'd like us to do things that make it not so."
Wearing that the white poppy is clearly, then, a political act.
This is true, Melichar says. But for him it is no more political than is wearing the red poppy.
"The red poppy is just as political and the British Legion have made it so," he argues. "At one time it used to be a simple symbol to raise a bit of money for the injured service people. Fine. But over the years it has become political, and the way that people wear it - and have to wear it - and so on is a clear indication of its political nature."
As far as the Fifa issue is concerned, Melichar said he doesn't have much of an opinion ("presumably it's to do with advertising," he said) - except for the fact that the debate has made it a political issue.
"It's become politicised," he said. "It would be funny if it wasn't about something so serious."
Not everyone who agreed with Fifa's initial stance necessarily supports the white poppy movement. Many simply point out that the power of the ever-more popular poppy has started to wilt under its own ubiquity.
This year's campaign is set to be the biggest-ever by the Royal British Legion, with revenues of £40m or more expected.
And far from offering one simple paper poppy, the Royal British Legion now boasts an online store where you can buy everything from bejewelled poppies suitable for Saturday evening television, poppy-branded umbrellas, poppy-related teabag tidy and a poppy-emblazoned spoon holder.
Others have pointed out that there was no widespread panic when England played Argentina on 12 November 2005 without poppies, or did the same against Sweden on 10 November 2001.
For now, however, the country seems united behind the England team. (Which if nothing else is something of a first since the last world cup.)
As Tory MP Hugh Robertson wrote in a letter to Fifa: "The public feel very strongly about this issue, which is seen as an act of national remembrance to commemorate those who gave their lives in the service of their country.
"It is not religious or political in any way. Wearing a poppy is a display of national pride, just like wearing your country's football shirt."
But therein lies the rub.
For indeed some people argue even wearing a football shirt is a political issue - if not in England, then certainly in Palestine.
And perhaps these days virtually anything is political if you want it to be.
Or, sometimes, even if you don't.