A photo of beer cans masked as Pepsi soft drink cans is being shared widely on social media with a claim that it shows football fans smuggling beer into Qatar during the FIFA World Cup 2022. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent photo of beer cans masked as Pepsi soft drink cans by football fans to smuggle beer into Qatar during the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Fact: The posted photo is not related to the FIFA World Cup 2022. It is an old photo that was taken in 2015 when Saudi Arabian officials confiscated beer cans masked as soft drinks. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the posted photo was run through Google Reverse Image Search, the same photo was found in an article published by ‘Al Arabiya News’ in 2015. In the article, it can be read that “a smuggler tried to carry nearly 48,000 cans of beers disguised as Pepsi cans into Saudi Arabia over the Al Batha border crossing with the UAE”. More news articles on the 2015 incident can be read here, here, and here. So, the posted photo is not related to the FIFA World Cup 2022.
However, an incident was widely reported by many media agencies that a Mexico fan allegedly tried to sneak beer into a Qatar stadium inside binoculars.
To sum it up, an unrelated old photo is shared as beer cans masked as soft drinks during the Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022.
