Alarming figure conflated soccer with war

The answer to “Alarming figure conflated soccer with war” in the The Times Cryptic crossword is SCARECROW — a 9-letter word. It most recently appeared in the The Times Cryptic crossword on September 11, 2026, a Friday puzzle, at 15-Down. Below you'll find why that fill fits, every other answer we've recorded for this clue, and links into the puzzle it came from.

“Alarming figure conflated soccer with war” answer

SCARECROW (9 letters)

Reveal the solution one letter at a time with the tiles above if you'd rather nudge yourself toward it than see the whole word at once. Just want it outright? The answer is SCARECROW.

What does SCARECROW mean?

Reading the plain dictionary sense of SCARECROW is often the fastest way to see why it answers this clue.

When else has “Alarming figure conflated soccer with war” appeared?

The Times Cryptic reuses clues across dates, sometimes with a different answer depending on the grid. Here's where this exact clue has shown up, and what the answer was each time — handy when you're checking whether today's fill is the only one.

September 11, 2026 (most recent) → SCARECROW. We haven't indexed another appearance of this exact clue yet.

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