A video is being widely shared on social media claiming that Portuguese star football player Cristiano Ronaldo had made an announcement to quit playing for the Manchester United Football club after Elon Musk announced his plans to buy the club. This post shared two interview video clips of Elon Musk and Cristiano Ronaldo and claims that the latter had refused to work with Elon Musk even though Musk had expressed his wish to buy Manchester United club for Ronaldo. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Cristiano Ronaldo announced quitting the Manchester United Football Club after Elon Musk announced his plans to buy the club.
Fact: The videos shared in the post are edited from separate interviews of Cristiano Ronaldo and Elon Musk. Cristiano Ronaldo had never announced quitting Manchester United. In August 2022, Elon Musk, in a follow-up tweet that expressed his support to both the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party, wrote, “Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome.” But, later in another tweet, Elon Musk clarified it as a long-running joke and said that he is not planning to buy Manchester United or any other sports team or club. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched to check whether Cristiano Ronaldo had made any such statement refusing to play for Manchester United under the ownership of Elon Musk, we could not find any news reports confirming this information on the internet. The post shared a video clip from Ronaldo’s interview with the Sky Sports channel in January 2022. Cristiano Ronaldo did not speak about Elon Musk or about leaving the Manchester United Football Club in this interview. During the interview, Cristiano Ronaldo expressed his disappointment over Manchester United’s performance in the Premier League and warned that he is not at the club to compete for 6th or 7th place in the league. But he never announced quitting Manchester United citing these reasons. Cristiano Ronaldo is still continuing as a player for Manchester United. Ronaldo did not publish any tweets about leaving Manchester United or about Elon Musk.
When we searched to check whether Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk had made any statement about buying Manchester United, we found that in August 2022, in a follow-up tweet that expressed his support to both the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party, Elon Musk wrote, “Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome.” But when a user questioned in the comments section whether he is serious about buying Manchester United, Elon Musk replied, “No, this is a long-running joke on Twitter. I’m not buying any sports teams.” But, in another tweet in the reply section, Elon Musk stated that Manchester United is his favourite football club and that if he is willing to buy a sports club in future, it would be the Manchester United.
The video clip shared in the post was created by editing a video clip from Elon Musk’s podcast interview with Lex Fridman. In the interview video, Elon Musk never mentioned that he is going to buy the Manchester United football club for Ronaldo.
To sum it up, edited video clips are being shared alleging Elon Musk had bought Manchester United club and Ronaldo immediately quit the club refusing to work with Elon Musk.
