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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Sports fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about sports. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

1,766 published reviews in this topic

El Detector / Unvision NoticiasSports

Andrés Iniesta dijo que Messi le robó un Balón de Oro y que Cristiano Ronaldo es el "mejor jugador de la historia".

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The investigation examined a viral Facebook post claiming that Andrés Iniesta said Lionel Messi had stolen a Ballon d’Or from him and that Cristiano Ronaldo was “the best player in history.” The post also suggested Iniesta could speak freely because he was no longer associated with Barcelona. The review says the post had received more than 62,000 reactions and had been shared over 13,000 times. It was accompanied by three photographs of Iniesta, including images with Ronaldo and Messi. The decisive evidence came from Iniesta’s communications representatives, Never Say Never. When contacted by the review’s team, they said it was “absolutely false” that Iniesta had made such statements and described the post as invented. The article also reports searches on Google, Yandex, and Bing using keywords about Iniesta, Messi, and the Ballon d’Or; those searches found no results recording the alleged remarks. The review concludes that Iniesta did not make either of the quoted statements. It also notes that the viral post contained two further unsupported claims: that Iniesta could now make such declarations freely because he was no longer connected to Barcelona, and that he feared corruption would prevail over sport that year. The article attributes its denial to the player’s representatives and its search findings to the searches it describes; it does not report a direct statement from Iniesta himself.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaSports

Three Generations Of Russian Gymnasts Performing Together !

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim says that three Russian gymnasts shown performing together are three generations of one family: a grandmother, mother, and daughter. Fact Crescendo’s review identifies the people in the video as Aigul Shaikhutdinova, Ekaterina Stroynova, and Ekaterina Loginov, and concludes that they are not related. It says the footage shows a team performance at the 2010 Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships, rather than a family performance.

FACTLYSports

Virat Kohli tweeted a message welcoming the Pakistani cricket team to India for the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review investigated a viral screenshot said to show Virat Kohli welcoming Pakistan’s team to India for the 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup and offering to host the players at his home. It concludes that Kohli did not post the welcome message: the screenshot came from a parody account, and the official account had no such tweet. The review’s stated finding is that the claim is false. [S1: “A screenshot of a tweet allegedly by Indian cricket player Virat Kohli is currently going viral on social media platforms. This tweet purportedly shows Kohli welcoming the Pakistan cricket team to India for the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (here) and also stating that he will be hosting a party for the team at his house.”; “Fact: The tweet was not made by Virat Kohli. It came from a parody account impersonating Kohli. The official Twitter account of Virat Kohli has no such tweet. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.”] To check the allegation, the review says it examined Kohli’s official Twitter account and searched its activity for the claimed post. It reports that, as of 3 October 2023, the most recent tweet on that account was an advertisement for Ocean Beverages, and that it found no welcome tweet dated 27 September. It also says it reviewed the account’s activity in detail. [S1: “We started by examining Virat Kohli’s official Twitter account to investigate the claim. As of the date of checking (03 October 2023), the last tweet from his account was an advertisement for Ocean Beverages. No welcome tweet to the Pakistani cricket team was found on the date mentioned, which is 27 September 2023. Further, we scrutinised his Twitter activity in detail, skimming through the entirety of his account.”] The review identifies the account-name difference as the decisive clue in the screenshot: the handle shown was @amiVkohli, while Kohli’s official handle was @imVkohli. It also reports that Pakistan’s team arrived in India on 27 September 2023, and that Kohli posted that day congratulating India’s women’s team on its Asian Games gold medal—not welcoming the Pakistani team. [S1: “On close examination of the viral screenshot, we found that the Twitter handle in question (@amiVkohli) differed slightly from the official handle (@imVkohli) of Virat Kohli, confirming our suspicion of the tweet being from a parody account.”; “There was no record of any tweet welcoming the Pakistani Men’s cricket team who arrived in India on 27 September 2023. On the said date, he made a Tweet congratulating the Indian Women’s team on winning the Gold medal in the ongoing Asian Games.”]

FACTLYSports

Video displaying the gymnastic performances of three generations of Russian gymnasts from a single family

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video of three Russian gymnasts performing, said to show three generations of one family. FACTLY identifies the gymnasts as Aigul Shaikhutdinova, Ekaterina Stroynova and Ekaterina Loginov, and says the video shows them at the 2010 Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships. Its account says the trio won first place in the women’s group category at that championship. To check the family claim, FACTLY reports identifying the performers from the names shown at the beginning of the video, then searching for a report that contained the same footage. That report placed the performance at the 2010 championship but, FACTLY notes, did not say the gymnasts were related. The review also says its search found no information confirming a shared family relationship. The review’s decisive evidence is that records from the Russian Federation for Aerobatics give the gymnasts’ birth years as 1994, 1987 and 1985, respectively. FACTLY uses those records, together with the absence of evidence of a family connection, to reject the claim that they are a grandmother, mother and daughter. It concludes that the performers are Russian gymnasts but are not related to one another.

FACTLYSports

Visuals of former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev being getting kidnapped.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video circulating on social media that appears to show former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev bound and gagged and being abducted. FACTLY’s review says the footage was not evidence of a real kidnapping: it identifies the clip as behind-the-scenes footage from an advertisement film and states that Kapil Dev was not actually abducted. To investigate the clip’s origins, the review reports conducting an internet keyword search. It says that search surfaced accounts identifying the video as a behind-the-scenes glimpse of an ad film. The review also describes two posts by former cricketer Gautam Gambhir: an initial post expressing concern, followed by another indicating that the video was part of an advertisement for Disney+Hotstar promoting the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. The review further reports that the creative agency Manja produced the ad and that its CEO, Arvind Krishnan, confirmed this by sharing a news article about the film. Taken together, the provenance described in the review explains why the staged-looking footage was misleading when presented as an actual abduction: it came from an advertising production, not a real kidnapping.

FACTLYSports

Video of Pakistani cricket team’s arrival at Hyderabad airport where a crowd is heard raising “Pakistan Murdabad” slogans

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as showing people shouting “Pakistan Murdabad” as Pakistan’s cricket team arrived at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. The team arrived on 27 September 2023 ahead of a warm-up match against New Zealand. The review distinguishes that particular clip from the broader question of whether any slogans were shouted at any other point during the team’s visit. To check the clip, the investigators used reverse image search to find an earlier version of the same video, posted by the Cricket & Stuff page on X at 9:03 PM on 27 September. They compared its audio with the audio in the circulating version and found that the earlier video did not contain distinct chanting of the slogan heard in the viral version. They also examined live-stream footage reported by multiple media outlets and found no evidence in that footage of the crowd distinctly raising anti-Pakistani slogans. The review further reports that the audio used in the circulating clip came from a Facebook video uploaded in August 2022. Its comparison of that audio with the viral clip led it to conclude that the clip’s audio had been altered. The finding is specific to the audio in this video: the review says it could not independently establish whether any anti- or pro-Pakistani slogans were raised at another time during the visit.

FACTLYSports

Indian Athlete Jyothi Yarraji won a gold medal in the 100m hurdles in the ongoing Asian Games 2023

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as showing Indian hurdler Jyothi Yarraji winning the 100m hurdles at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023. FACTLY’s review distinguishes that event from the Asian Athletics Championships: it says the video showed Yarraji’s race at the latter competition, held in July 2023, rather than at the Asian Games. The review also notes that Yarraji’s Asian Games race had not yet taken place when the video was circulating; her first race there was scheduled for 30 September. The review describes two checks. It says a sign visible behind the athletes in the video reads “Asian Athletics Championship 2023,” and that searches using relevant keywords found the same video shared by Sai Media and sports foundations in July. It also identifies a Reliance Foundation Youth Sports post describing Yarraji’s gold as a win at the Asian Athletics Championships, with a time of 13.09 seconds. These details support the review’s conclusion that the clip was genuine footage of a Yarraji gold-medal race, but from a different championship—not evidence of an Asian Games win. The review states that the Asian Games were being held in Hangzhou from 23 September to 8 October 2023, while Yarraji’s 100m hurdles race was still to come. Its update says she later won silver in that event. The key distinction is therefore both the competition shown in the video and the medal outcome: the clip relates to the Asian Athletics Championships, while the review reports a silver for Yarraji at the Asian Games.