A post is being shared on social media claiming that Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo said he loves Islam the most. A photo accompanying the post looks like an interview set-up. Let’s verify the claim made in this post through this article.
Claim: Cristiano Ronaldo said that he loves Islam more than anything.
Fact: The photo in the viral post was captured in January 2022, when Ronaldo received the ‘Globe Soccer’s Top Scorer of All Time award in Dubai.‘ As per news reports, Ronaldo expressed his love towards Dubai, its people and its culture. Nowhere in the news was it reported that Ronaldo said he loves Islam the most. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To know if any media outlets have published an article about Ronaldo’s alleged statement, we performed a reverse image search on the photo shared in the post. This led us to a few news reports published in January 2022, which contained images (here and here) similar to the viral Post.
The Sun reported that Cristiano Ronaldo won the ‘Globe Soccer’s Top Scorer of All Time award in Dubai….‘ He gave a speech after he received the award. Khaleej Times posted a video of the Q&A, which took place after he received the award. This award ceremony is part of the Expo 2020 Dubai event.
The live Q&A video is also available on the website of Expo 2020 Dubai. In this interaction, he expresses his love towards Dubai from the 3 Minute 17 Seconds mark. When the host asks how he liked Dubai, he says, ‘…I love Dubai because they treat me unbelievable; I love the people; I love the culture … ‘. Nowhere in the live interaction Ronaldo said that he loves Islam the most.
To sum up, Cristiano Ronaldo did not say that he loves Islam the most.
