What was claimed
A video shows football fans singing in support of Palestine during the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Our verdict
False. The footage dates back to 2019 and was filmed in Morocco, not Qatar
Video of football fans singing for Palestine is not from World Cup
7 December 2022
A video posted on Facebook falsely claims to show spectators at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar collectively singing support of Palestine.
The footage shows a large crowd at a football stadium singing in unison. According to the subtitles on the video, which appear in both Portuguese and English, the lyrics call for support of Palestine against Israel.
The caption accompanying the post claims the video captures the first time in history that a whole stadium in Qatar has sung in support of Palestine. However, although the same video has been posted by a number of other Facebook accounts making the same claim, it was not taken during the 2022 World Cup, and pre-dates the event by more than three years.
A YouTube link to more footage from the same match appears in an article on the Arabic Post website dated 24 September 2019. The article (translated with Google Translate) says the footage of the singing was shot during a football match between Morocco's Raja Club Athletic and Palestine’s Hilal Al-Quds, at the Stade Mohammed V in Casablanca.
Other media reports at the time also talk specifically about the pro-Palestinian singing in the crowd.
The same footage and other, longer clips from the match have been shared by other Facebook and YouTube accounts, and the Twitter account of a Raja supporter’s club also posted images from the game. These images match those shown in the video.
The flags and banners being waved by members of the crowd that can be seen in the video match the colours and logos of the two teams. As neither are national teams, neither would be present at the World Cup in Qatar.
Image courtesy of Fauzan Saari
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the footage was not filmed in Qatar and pre-dates the World Cup by three years.