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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

FACTLYSports

Photo shows the Sri Lankan flag being displayed on the Burj Khalifa tower after their cricket team won the 2022 Asia Cup

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photo circulated as showing the Burj Khalifa displaying Sri Lanka’s flag after Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup on 11 September 2022. FACTLY’s review says the image was from an earlier event, not the cricket victory: the tower was lit with the flag in 2019 as a gesture of solidarity after terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka. The review also reports that it found no reports of the flag display being repeated after the team’s win. To check the image’s history, the review says it used Google Reverse Image Search. That search led to the same photo on a website in 2019, credited to photographer Giuseppe CACACE and AFP. A Getty Images description dated the picture to 25 April 2019 and said the tower was lit with Sri Lanka’s flag in solidarity following the 21 April attacks on hotels and churches during Easter. This earlier provenance directly contradicts the claim that the photo was taken after the 2022 final. The review adds that Burj Khalifa’s official Twitter account had posted a similar photo in April 2019, but had not tweeted about lighting the tower for the team’s recent victory. The evidence presented therefore identifies the circulated image as a 2019 solidarity display, rather than a 2022 celebration of Sri Lanka’s cricket win.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaSports

Burj Khalifa Was Lit Up With Sri Lankan National Flag After The Asian Cup Victory!

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerned a viral image said to show Dubai’s Burj Khalifa lit with Sri Lanka’s national flag after Sri Lanka beat Pakistan to win the Asia Cup 2022. The review notes that the image was shared in connection with the final, including by users who thanked the building for displaying the flag. It investigated whether the tower had shown the flag on 11 September 2022 to celebrate the victory. The review reports that searches found no news of such a display on that date. Instead, it says international media reported that the tower was lit to mark condolences after Queen Elizabeth II’s death that night. The investigators also contacted Sri Lankans living in Dubai, who confirmed to them that the tower had not been lit with the national flag for the victory. The decisive finding was the image’s earlier provenance. The review says a reverse image search traced the same picture to 25 April 2019, when the Burj Khalifa displayed Sri Lanka’s flag in solidarity with the country after the Easter Sunday bombings. It identifies a post by the Burj Khalifa’s official Twitter account featuring the picture and a contemporaneous post by Sri Lankan cricketer Dimuth Karunaratna. The review’s conclusion is that the viral image was real, but its reuse as evidence of an Asia Cup celebration misrepresented when and why it was taken.

FACTLYSports

Visuals of a recent fight between the Afghanistan and Pakistan fans after the 2022 Asia Cup cricket match

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a video presented as showing a recent fight between Afghanistan and Pakistan fans after their 2022 Asia Cup cricket match. FACTLY’s review concludes that the footage was old and came from the 2019 Cricket World Cup, not from clashes following the 2022 match. Its conclusion is specifically about the provenance of the posted video; it does not deny that fans clashed in 2022. To investigate, the review says it ran screenshots from the video through Google Reverse Image. It reports finding similar visuals in search results and identifies a June 2019 article by The Sun about the same video, titled “Shocking new footage emerges of Pakistan and Afghanistan fans brawling during Cricket World Cup.” FACTLY also points to older posts with similar visuals. The review distinguishes the circulated footage from actual incidents after the Asia Cup match: it says clashes between the two teams’ fans were reported then and points to visuals of those incidents. On the evidence described, the misleading element is assigning 2019 footage to the 2022 events, rather than the assertion that clashes occurred after the match.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaSports

ඉන්දීය ක්‍රිකට් කණ්ඩායමට සහය පළ කරමින් ඔවුන්ගේ T-Shirt එකකින් සැරසුණු යොහානි?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerned an image circulated during the Sri Lanka–India Asia Cup Super Four match on September 6, 2022. It appeared to show singer Yohani wearing an Indian cricket team shirt and Indian-coloured face paint, implying that she was supporting India. The review says it investigated posts presenting the image as genuine and found that the image had been edited: it used an older photograph of Yohani in Sri Lanka team clothing, altered to look like an authentic image of her in Indian team colours. S1 describes the circulated picture as showing “ඉන්දියානු ක්‍රිකට් කණ්ඩායමට අයත් ටී-ෂර්ට් එකක්” and says the image was “සූක්ෂම ලෙස සත්‍ය ඡායාරූපයක් ලෙස හැඟවෙන පරිදි සංස්කරණය කර තිබූ”. The review identifies the underlying photograph as one Yohani posted to her official Instagram account in July 2020. It says that, in the unedited image, she was wearing Sri Lanka team clothing—not the Indian shirt shown in the circulating version. This provenance directly addresses the image’s appearance: the review compares the altered picture with the earlier original, rather than treating the circulating image as evidence of what Yohani wore at the 2022 match. S1 states that “2020 ජුලි මස යොහානි විසින් ඇයගේ නිල ඉන්ටග්‍රම් ගිණුමට එක් කර තිබු එම සංස්කරණය නොකළ සත්‍ය ඡායාරූපය” and that “සත්‍ය ඡායාරූපයේ දැක්වෙන්නේ ශ්‍රී ලංකා ක්‍රිකට් කණ්ඩායම නියෝජනය කරමින් යොහානි ඇඳ සිටි ටී-ෂර්ට්යකි”. The review also reports that Yohani was not in Dubai watching the match: her manager, Dilan Jan Senaviratne, confirmed to the publisher that she was in Sri Lanka at the time. Taken together, the reported image comparison and the manager’s statement undercut the post’s implication that the image showed her attending the match in Indian kit. The review concludes that the circulated image was edited and that the original showed Yohani wearing a Sri Lanka cricket shirt. S1 reports that her manager “තහවුරු කළා” she was in Sri Lanka, and concludes that “හුවමාරු වී තිබුනේ සංස්කරණය කළ ඡායාරූපයක් බවයි”.

FACTLYSports

Recent video showing people in Srinagar celebrating after Pakistan’s victory against India in the Asia Cup 2022

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as recent footage of people in Srinagar celebrating Pakistan’s win over India in the Asia Cup match on 4 September 2022. FACTLY reports that it checked the video’s history rather than treating its circulation after the match as proof of when it was recorded. Its review says reverse-image searches of video screenshots led to similar footage posted on Facebook on 14 August 2020, described as Pakistan Independence Day celebrations in Downtown Srinagar. It also found the same video published by local Kashmiri news websites in August 2020, reporting that it showed celebrations at Nawakadal Chowk. The review further reports that Srinagar Police responded to a journalist who had shared the video as recent footage. Police said it was old and that no such celebrations had been reported after the 2022 match. In a separate quoted statement, the police described it as footage from Nawakadal Chowk and warned against circulating it as recent. Together, the earlier publication history and the police clarification contradict the video’s presentation as footage of celebrations after the 2022 Asia Cup match. FACTLY notes a qualification: it could not establish the exact date the video was filmed. The evidence in the review therefore supports that the clip is old and unrelated to the 4 September 2022 match, but does not establish its precise recording date. The review also mentions celebrations in Kashmir after Pakistan’s 2017 Champions Trophy win; it does not identify those events as the source of this particular video.

FACTLYSports

Photo of BCCI secretary Jay Shah with Pakistan General’s Son Saad Bajwa

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a widely shared photo said to show BCCI Secretary Jay Shah with Saad Bajwa, the son of a Pakistani general. FACTLY’s review concludes that the person beside Shah in the viral image is not Bajwa but Yashraj Rautela, brother of actress Urvashi Rautela. The review distinguishes the identity of the person in the photo from the separate question of whether Bajwa was at the match: it says he attended the India–Pakistan Asia Cup match, but was not the person pictured beside Shah in the viral image. To investigate, FACTLY says it compared the person in the image with pictures of Bajwa, then traced the viral photo through reverse-image search. It found an earlier Facebook post sharing the same image, captioned “Jay Shah YashRaj Rautela IND vs PAK Asia cup 2022.” The stadium background pointed the review toward that match and helped connect the image to Rautela. The review further identifies Rautela as Urvashi Rautela’s younger brother and says he posted an Instagram photo wearing the same outfit. It also notes that Shah and Bajwa can be seen together in the full match replay, but that observation does not establish that Bajwa is the person standing beside Shah in the separately circulated photo. The evidence presented therefore supports the distinction between Bajwa’s attendance and the identity of the person in the viral image.

Factcrescendo Sri LankaSports

An Indian female Spectator Knocking Down A Pakistani Wrestler!

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The viral post presented a wrestling match as a Pakistani woman challenging Indians in Dubai, then being defeated by an Indian spectator named Vijaya Lakshmi from Tamil Nadu. The review found that the people and setting in the video did not match that account: the two women were Indian wrestlers, and the match took place in Punjab, India—not Dubai. It also found no connection between the match and Pakistan. (S1: “A Spectator lady Vijaya Lakshmi from Tuthukudi in Tamil Nadu freely moved to the boxing ring with determination and accepted the roaring challenge.”; “both these women were Indians and there was no connection to Pakistan wrestlers in this instance. Also, this match was not held in Dubai, but in an area called Jalandhar in the Indian state of Punjab.”) To investigate the video’s origin, the review says it used reverse image searches on video frames. That led it to identify the footage as an older event, held in 2016. The review describes the match as a contest between Kavita Devi and BB Bull, rather than a spectator taking on a Pakistani wrestler. (S1: “We first tried to identify the origins of the video by carrying out a reverse image search on the video frames and noticed that the incident was not a recent one and had taken place back in 2016.”; “The lady wearing an orange/yellow colored salwar, who had accepted the challenge, is an Indian woman named Kavita Devi”; “The other woman seen in this video is BB Bull.”) The review further says the match was held in June 2016 and that the women were professional wrestlers. It reports that Kavita Devi had trained with Continental Wrestling Entertainment (CWE) from February 2016 and that her wrestling career began with this match. These details support the review’s conclusion that the viral caption misidentified both the participant and the circumstances: the footage showed a wrestling matchup in India, not a spectator defeating a Pakistani opponent in Dubai. (S1: “The organizers of the match known as Continental Wrestling Entertainment (CWE), is an organization that promotes professional wrestling and conducts matches in India.”; “She is known as a weightlifter and had been involved in wrestling training with CWE since February 2016.”; “The original video of the wrestling match held between the two female fighters in June 2016 can be watched below.”)

Fact CrescendoSports

मैच में पाकिस्तान की हार होने के कारण लोगों ने टी.वी तोड़कर पाकिस्तानी खिलाड़ियों पर अपना गुस्सा जताया। और भारत में लोग इस वीडियो को वायरल कर पाकिस्तानियों का मज़ाक उड़ा रहे है।

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYSports

Recent video showing Arabs celebrating India’s victory against Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2022

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as recent footage of Arabs celebrating India’s victory over Pakistan at the Asia Cup 2022 match at Dubai International Stadium. FACTLY reports that it checked screenshots from the circulating video using reverse image search and found matching visuals in a 2020 post by Khalaf Al-Enezi, a journalist and sports reporter with ATV Kuwait. The review says Al-Enezi identified the man shown as Abdulaziz Ahmed Ashour, president of Al-Arabi football club, celebrating his team’s win. The investigation also reports finding similar footage in a video published on ATV Kuwait’s news website, which identified it as Ashour’s celebration. The occasion was Al-Arabi’s victory over Al-Kuwait in the Amir Cup final on 21 September 2020; the review gives the score as 2–1. These earlier sources connect the same visuals to a football celebration nearly two years before the Asia Cup match, rather than to India’s cricket victory. The review therefore concludes that the video is old and unrelated to the claimed India–Pakistan cricket match. Its account supports that conclusion through the reported reverse-image-search match, the earlier social-media post, and the reported identification by ATV Kuwait. The supplied evidence does not independently provide the underlying posts or footage; those provenance details are reported in the review.