On November 3, 2023, a Facebook user, Joseph Moonwalkers claimed that ace footballer Lionel Messi celebrated a goal by showing off legendary singer Michael Jackson’s T-shirt under his jersey.
The post has an image of the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner celebrating a goal by showing off a Michael Jackson’s T-shirt under his jersey.
“Throwback to when Lionel Messi celebrated a goal showing off a Michael Jackson T-shirt under his jersey,” the caption reads.
As of November 10, the post has gathered over 31,000 likes, 710 comments and 788 shares.
CLAIM
Lionel Messi celebrated a goal by showing off a Michael Jackson T-shirt under his jersey.
THE FINDINGS
The findings show that the claim is MISLEADING.
To verify the authenticity of the image, The News Digest Press subjected the image to Reverse Image Search on Yandex, Google Lens and TinEye.
The results show that the former FC Barcelona captain Lionel Messi from Argentina celebrated his second goal during his Spanish League soccer match against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, March 10, 2007.
However, no photo of a person is attached to the underwear T-shirt that the World Cup winner was wearing in the original image. It was just a pure white T-shirt with some inscription on it.
Meanwhile, The News Digest Press has obtained similar images with different people attached to the original image of the T-shirt.
THE VERDICT
The image showing Lionel Messi celebrating a goal wearing Michael Jackson’s T-shirt under his jersey has been doctored and thus making the claim MISLEADING.
* This fact-check was written by Shereefdeen Ahmad, a fellow of the ICIR’s Countering Misinformation and Promoting Media Literacy project, supported by the German Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria.
