Update (19 October 2023):
Another video is being shared on social media claiming it shows visuals of Cristiano Ronaldo holding placards in support of Palestine. The visuals show Ronaldo holding placards with the texts, “I love Gaza and You?” and “Todos Con Palestine” (When translated from Spanish to English: “Together with Palestine”). The same video shows a few other visuals and claims it shows Cristiano Ronaldo refusing to shake hands with the Israeli president. Let’s verify the claims made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of Cristiano Ronaldo holding placards in support of Palestine and refusing to shake hands with the Israel President.
Fact: The purported photos that show Cristiano Ronaldo holding placards in support of Palestine in the video are edited. The original photo shows Cristiano Ronaldo displaying a placard with the text, “Todos Con Lorca”. The person to whom Cristiano Ronaldo refused to shake hands in the video was Italian politician Luca Ferrari, not the Israel President. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
Photos:
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the images, a similar image was published by several websites. The original image shows Cristiano Ronaldo holding a placard with the text, “Todos Con Lorca” (When translated from Spanish to English, it reads, “Together with Lorca.”). The photo was taken in 2011, when Real Madrid football players including Cristiano Ronaldo visited Lorca to express their solidarity with the earthquake victims. This indicates that the images shared in the video are edited.
Video:
The post claims it is the visuals of Cristiano Ronaldo refusing to shake hands with the Israel President.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video showing similar visuals was found tweeted by TNT Sports in December 2019. The video was tweeted with the description, “Cristiano Ronaldo not interested in Italian Supercup silver medal.” When we searched for further sources using relevant keywords, we found that the official whom Ronaldo was seen ignoring in the video was Luca Ferrari, an Italian politician and the former Italy’s Ambassador to China. The video was reportedly taken after the final of Italy’s Super Cup tournament.
Published (18 October 2023):
A video is being shared on social media claiming that Portugal’s star football player Cristiano Ronaldo had sent a video message expressing his support to Palestine. Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, the video is going viral on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Cristiano Ronaldo’s video message expressing his support for Palestine in its ongoing war with Israel.
Fact: The viral video is from 2016, when Cristiano Ronaldo’s gave a special message for children in war-torn Syria. The video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the ongoing war between Israel and Palestine. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
When we searched for the video using relevant keywords, we found the same video on the official ‘X’ handle of Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo published the video in 2016 with the description, “A message of hope to the children affected by the conflict in Syria. @SavetheChildren.”
Cristiano Ronaldo in the video said– “Hello, this is for children of Syria. We know that you have been suffering a lot. I am a very famous player, but you are the true heroes. Don’t lose your hope. The world is with you. We care about you. I am with you.”
Ronaldo sent this special message to the children in war-ravaged Syria as part of the ‘Save the Children’s Syria’ campaign. Several news portals published articles and videos reporting about Cristiano Ronaldo’s message to Syrian children. They can be seen here, here, and here.
Earlier, Factly debunked a few similar fake posts attributing unrelated and digitally altered videos to Portugal Football player Cristiano Ronaldo. The links to those fact-check articles can be seen below.
Article links:
- This football player waving the Palestine flag on the ground is Morocco’s Jawad El Yamiq, not Cristiano Ronaldo
- A Deep Fake video of Cristiano Ronaldo Singing in Arabic is shared as real, claiming him to be a Muslim
- No, Cristiano Ronaldo did not say that he loves Islam the most
To sum it up, a 2016 video of Cristiano Ronaldo’s special message to Syrian children is falsely linked to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.
