These visuals of Argentina fans erecting a cutout of Lionel Messi under water are from Lakshadweep, not Kerala - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
December 26, 2022
A video of a few fans of the Argentina football team, allegedly from Kerala, setting up a cutout of Lionel Messi under water is being shared widely on social media. Let’s fact-check this through this article.
Claim: The Argentina football team fans from Kerala erected a cutout of Messi under water.
Fact: The video shared in the viral post was shot and uploaded by a vlogger named Mohammed Swadikh on his YouTube channel, ‘Lakshadweep vlogger, swadikh’. Swadikh erected a cutout of Lionel Messi underwater (Arabian Sea) in Lakshadweep. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
The viral video contains a watermark that reads Lakshadweep Vlogger. At the beginning of the video, at the 0:14 mark, we can see Argentina Fans, Kavaratti, written at the bottom of the cutout.
A simple search on Google reveals that Kavaratti is the capital of Lakshadweep, a Union Territoty in India. Based on these hints, we searched the internet for the source of the video. This led us to a 4 minute 55-second video titled ‘underwater messi cut out at Lakshadweep‘ uploaded on a YouTube channel named ‘Lakshadweep vlogger, Swadikh’. The visuals of this video match those of the viral video.
Vlogger Mohammad Swadikh, who hails from Lakshadweep, erected a cutout of Lionel Messi on the seabed of the Arabian Sea. His feat also attracted media coverage which you can watch here and here. In an interview given to NDTV, Swadikh said that he did this feat to adhere to a challenge that he posted on his Facebook, which is to erect a cutout of Messi underwater if Argentina qualifies for the final of the FIFA world cup.
To sum it up, these visuals of Argentina fans erecting a cutout of Messi underwater are from Lakshadweep, not Kerala.