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The 2026 World Cup may have ended, but the debates it ignited continue to dominate the digital space. Among the stories that refused to fade after the final whistle of the goalless draw between Ghana’s Black Stars and England’s Three Lions was the alleged role of black magic and supernatural influence.
Ahead of Ghana’s World Cup match against England on June 23, 2026, Ghanaian fetish priest Nana Kwaku Bonsam, whose surname literally translates as “Devil of Wednesday,” told the UK’s Daily Star that he intended to cast a spell on England captain Harry Kane in an effort to improve the Black Stars’ chances of advancing from the group stage.
“I am working on Harry Kane. I have shown what I am capable of before, so I know what work I must do.”
The match ended in a draw, with Kane missing a significant opportunity to convert a chance inside the box into a goal.
Within days, Kwaku Bonsam’s claim had spread across several social media platforms, including TikTok, X, YouTube, Instagram, and Bluesky. Two UK tabloids, the Daily Star and the Daily Mail, along with news outlets in India and Indonesia, reported his claim, turning it into a broader narrative that portrayed him as a “Ghanaian witchdoctor” and linked his alleged supernatural powers to the match result.
Although the Ghana Football Association, Ghanaian football officials, and the Black Stars had no involvement in the claim, it became a recurring point of discussion in the run-up to Ghana’s World Cup match against England.
Using Apify and Talkwalker, DUBAWA scraped 25 TikTok videos, 42,380 Reddit posts and comments, 42 Facebook posts, and 67 Facebook comments. It also collected millions of impressions for the keywords “witchdoctor” and “Nana Kwaku Bonsam” across X, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky, online news platforms, and podcasts in multiple countries between June and July 2026. The analysis found that Ghana risks becoming associated with black magic or supernatural influence in international football discussions.
DUBAWA traced the narrative to several factors, including the role of UK tabloids in seeding the claim, which contributed to the generic “Ghanaian witchdoctor” label being applied across more than ten countries.
Screenshot of breakdown of the share of conversations by country/region/Source: Talkwalker
However, the near-total absence of counter-narrative content created conditions in which Ghana’s name could become a recurring reference point in World Cup discourse and would be invoked whenever an opponent’s player underperformed, regardless of whether Ghana was involved in the match.
Screenshot of sentiment analysis on Kwaku Bonsam’s claim/Source: Talkwalker
Why the Witchdoctor label made it into the trends
Before the Ghana–England match, Nana Kwaku Bonsam publicly announced that he would curse Harry Kane to prevent him from scoring. Following the 0–0 draw, Bonsam claimed that he had lifted the curse. He later predicted that Cristiano Ronaldo would win the tournament and subsequently extended his curse claims to Argentina, Croatia’s Luka Modrić, France’s Kylian Mbappé, and Norway’s Erling Haaland. These claims generated fresh content cycles around each new fixture, regardless of whether Ghana was involved.
Screenshot of tweet by @Theberni250 inquiring about Kwaku Bonsam’s prediction on the Sweden-France match/Source: X (formerly Twitter)
DUBAWA’s review of the dataset found no evidence linking Bonsam’s statements to the Ghana Football Association, the Ghanaian government, or any official institution. However, our digital investigations found that the Ghanaian fetish priest actively sought coverage from UK tabloids and social media platforms.
Based on the trove of data collected and analysed, the narrative appears to be substantially his own creation, amplified internationally rather than reflecting a community-wide belief or an institutional practice in Ghana.
A second, separate incident identified by DUBAWA in the dataset contributed to the same narrative cluster. A baby-powder stunt by a fan during a Ghana match, which went viral and was conflated by several TikTok accounts with the Bonsam story. This occurred despite the incident being independently identified and debunked by the TikTok account @uncle_wolle as a baby powder stunt rather than genuine “juju.”
Ghanaian football fan, Kailani Ibrahim Kpa/Source: ESPN FC
Kwaku Bonsam’s account of how Daily Star contacted him
On June 24, 2026, Kwaku Bonsam granted an interview on Accra-based Okay FM, during which he recounted how the Daily Star approached him.
According to him, he was contacted to participate in what he described as a Zoom call “with many observers.” He claimed that he was initially reluctant to speak, but when he eventually did, he revealed the specific ritual he said he would use, involving the phrase “Kofi o Kofi” alongside other items he referred to as “dietaries,” which he claimed would ensure that the spell worked on Harry Kane.
He added that he bought cows and other items for the ritual, as well as a spiritual robe to tie around a doll, and placed a “building block” on it.
He further claimed that the journalist told him other priests had been consulted and that his ritual would not succeed, prompting him, by his own account, to switch to a second ritual he called “Kumi Preko,” which literally means ‘kill me at once,’ as a backup.
He continued that, during the match itself, the same contact reached out to tell him that the “black magic may have worked,” citing a moment when Kane fell during play.
After the match, Bonsam posted a video, which YEN.com reported was circulating on X, in which he said: “I am the most powerful spiritualist in the world. I am now going to release Harry Kane so that he can score in England’s next match,” while untying a doll he claimed represented Kane.
How the story moved
The narrative’s spread followed a sequence traceable across multiple sources. Before June 23, the UK’s Daily Star published a pre-match interview with Bonsam, an event confirmed only through multiple social media platforms that amplified it.
On June 23, @KwameSah85545 on X, posting from Ghana, produced the earliest confirmed Ghana-origin social media post linked to the narrative. The post cited Kane’s statistics against Ghana and asked, “Coincidence? You decide.”
Screenshot of @KwameSah85545 tweet/Source: X
On June 24, 2026, several Nigerian outlets and @thee_alfa_house in Kenya republished the Daily Star quote with a juju framing, marking the narrative’s pickup by digital news outlets across West and East Africa. Later that same day, thesouthafrican.com and thefuse.co.za published articles challenging Bonsam’s claims, reaching a combined audience of more than 1 million monthly visitors and marking the narrative’s pickup by South African news outlets.
A separate TikTok amplification wave developed across two periods, linked to the baby-powder incident and the Kane story. This wave was driven by @voyage_ex, @2ec_easy, and six other accounts, which collectively generated 2.99 million views.
Between June 25 and 26, AfricaFactsZone on X and YouTube channels based in the United States, Indonesia, and India carried a second content cycle built around the same story, this time framed around the curse being lifted and a prophecy involving Cristiano Ronaldo. Concurrently, between June 24 and 29, Manoramaonline, SportsTak, and 90DetikBola produced content in Malayalam, Hindi, and Indonesian, marking the narrative’s pickup across South and Southeast Asian media.
Between June 27 and 28, @thekingsmanUG and @GeniusOb8832 extended the narrative further by adding Argentina, Croatia’s Luka Modrić, and France’s Kylian Mbappé as new targets of Bonsam’s claims. Around the same period, between June 25 and 26, Talkin’ Ballocks and VIBEZ, both UK-based YouTube channels, published reaction and commentary videos aimed at a domestic UK audience. On June 26, the Daily Mail, also based in the UK, published an article situating the story within a historical tradition of witch-doctor curses in football.
The only counter-narrative content in the dataset appeared on June 22 and 28. It came from @uncle_wolle on TikTok, whose video correcting the record on the baby-powder stunt received 84,600 views, and from @mureithi_me on X, whose post from South Africa challenged anti-African stereotyping and reached 3,343 followers.
All the steps in this sequence are rated as high confidence in the underlying dataset. The best-evidenced migration route runs from the Daily Star, a UK tabloid, to Nigerian digital news outlets that republish Daily Star quotes, then to pan-African social media accounts, followed by a global TikTok meme cluster, and finally to South and Southeast Asian sports media. This sequence indicates that UK tabloid coverage preceded and structurally enabled the international spread of the narrative, rather than social media independently generating it.
Was this coordinated, or organic?
DUBAWA examined several indicators commonly used to distinguish coordinated inauthentic behaviour from organic virality. Near-identical phrasing (e.g., “black magic [verb] Harry Kane”) appeared across some TikTok accounts, including @voyage_ex and @pitchmyth. Bonsam’s Daily Star quote also circulated verbatim across several platforms, a pattern consistent with the organic propagation of a pre-existing tabloid phrase rather than evidence independently sufficient to establish coordination.
What is clear, however, is Bonsam’s own media strategy. He gave a pre-match interview to the Daily Star, made a post-match announcement, issued a prophecy involving Cristiano Ronaldo, and extended similar claims to Argentina, Croatia, and France in the days that followed. These actions point to a pattern of deliberate self-promotion, with Bonsam functioning as the originating actor rather than a passive subject of third-party coordination.
Location falsification: The accounts that weren’t where they said they were
A separate DUBAWA review of Talkwalker influencer data covering June to July 2026 found that the conversation was concentrated almost entirely on X, which accounted for 99% of the activity, while YouTube accounted for the remaining 1%.
Within the X conversation, several of the highest-reach accounts driving the “witchdoctor” narrative displayed public location settings that did not match the countries from which they appeared to be operating.
Screenshot of list of influencers driving the narrative/source: Talkwalker
One such account, @GeniusOb8832, posted, “Modrić tonight after a Ghanaian witch doctor put a curse on him.” Although the account’s public location was listed as the United States, DUBAWA’s review of its activity patterns suggested that it was operating from Africa.
Screenshot of @GeniusOb8832 tweet/Source: Talkwalker
Screenshot of the About this account/source: X (formerly of twitter)
Another account, @AFC_DNA_, displayed the United Kingdom as its location, but DUBAWA’s review of its activity patterns suggested that it was operating from Africa.
Screenshot of @AFC_DNA_ tweet/Source: Talkwalker
AfricaFactsZone, an account with 1.3 million followers whose post on the story reached an estimated 34.4 thousand people, recorded a 0.1% engagement rate and generated an estimated media value of $246.1.
The post also received 74 reposts, 15 quotes, 73 replies, 642 likes, 46 bookmarks, and 59,900 impressions. The account was flagged in DUBAWA’s review notes as one whose declared location did not correspond with its actual base.
However, the underlying note on the account is ambiguous regarding the precise direction of the mismatch and is reproduced here for transparency rather than presented as a resolved finding.
Screenshot of accounts falsifying location/Source: Talkwalker
Screenshot of About this account/Source: X (formerly twitter)
A fourth account, @thekingsmanUG, which posted “The Ghanaian witchdoctor has put a curse spell on Argentina,” was similarly flagged in the location-mismatch review.
Screenshot of @thekingsmanUG tweet/Source: Talkwalker
Screenshot of About this account of @thekingsmanUG/Source: X
X introduced the ‘About this account’ feature to fight misinformation. It allows third-party users to verify where the account is based, when it was created, and how many times the user changed their name, among other things. Through this initiative, X users will be able to determine whether they are chatting with inauthentic accounts seeking to amplify misinformation. As a result of this feature, DUBAWA digital investigations found that these accounts were amplifying a set agenda with their falsified locations.
The actors: Who is actually driving this, and what role did each play?
A small set of accounts and outlets shaped how the narrative moved across regions and formats. The Daily Star in the UK was the only confirmed UK tabloid with a direct originating role, having interviewed Bonsam before the match and seeded the quote that later circulated globally. The Daily Mail, also in the UK, published a historical article on witch-doctor curses in football that contextualised the Kane story and added a layer of legitimacy to the narrative.
On social media, AfricaFactsZone on X (1.3 million followers) produced the highest-engagement single post in the dataset, framing the story as news and circulating an image of Bonsam. Exposure among South Asian audiences was confirmed through Manorama Online on Instagram (940,000 followers), which published content in Malayalam, and SportsTak on YouTube (7.93 million subscribers), which published content in Hindi. Southeast Asian pickup of the narrative was confirmed through 90DetikBola on YouTube in Indonesia.
Within the TikTok dataset, @uncle_wolle was the only account offering a corrective voice, reporting the baby-powder-stunt origin of the incident and reaching 84,600 views. On X, @mureithi_me in South Africa (3,343 followers) provided the clearest counter-narrative, arguing that “juju talk” is invoked selectively when African teams perform well and framing this as a critique of anti-African stereotyping.
The dominant frames used to tell this story
The Ghana-witchdoctor narrative took shape around several distinct but overlapping frames. The most common was sensationalism, or the causal claim, which presented the curse as a genuine explanation for Kane’s missed opportunity or Ghana’s draw. This frame appeared in roughly 45% of Ghana-witchdoctor narrative posts across all platforms, with examples including @f41football1’s “Ghana Used Black Magic To Win,” @HbonesMedia’s “So did the Witch Doctor’s curse actually work?” and @KwameSah85545’s “Coincidence? You decide.”
A second major frame was humour, which treated the story as comic entertainment rather than a literal belief, often accompanied by exaggerated emojis or ironic framing. This accounted for roughly 30% of posts and was exemplified by @2ec_easy’s “Black magic is real,” a post whose high like-to-play ratio signalled irony rather than sincerity.
A third frame, player-specific targeting, centred on Harry Kane individually rather than on Ghana as a team or nation. This frame was particularly significant on TikTok, appearing in 36% of the Ghana-related cluster there, and represented the majority frame on YouTube. Four of the eleven Ghana-specific TikTok videos named Kane explicitly.
A fourth pattern, escalation to new targets, saw Bonsam’s claims extend beyond the original story to other teams and players, decoupling the “Ghana-witchdoctor” narrative from Ghana’s own results.
A fifth frame, cultural counter-narrative, explicitly rejected the juju framing as a form of anti-African stereotyping. This frame was present but marginal, appearing in only two items across all datasets and being heavily outweighed by the narrative content it challenged. It appeared in @mureithi_me’s post, which noted that “when an African team performs well, you hear the juju talk but not for other teams,” and in @uncle_wolle’s debunking video.
Finally, historical contextualisation situated the Ghana story within a broader football-and-witchdoctor tradition. This frame appeared only in news media, with limited social media amplification, and was reflected in the Daily Mail’s piece on how “the Socceroos got cursed by a witch doctor twice” and in a passing reference within an Insider Sport article on Algeria versus Austria.
The reputational impact assessment
The reputational impact assessment for Ghana examined the scale of exposure as its first indicator. The scale of exposure was significant across multiple platforms, including millions of TikTok views, 59,900 X impressions from the AfricaFactsZone post alone, confirmed YouTube views across four countries, and readership generated through the Daily Mail and Daily Star. This measure was rated as high confidence at the individual platform level but only moderate confidence in aggregate, since the precise unduplicated audience size across all platforms remains unknown.
The geographic spread was confirmed across at least 20 countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, the UK, the US, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Haiti, France, Tanzania, Panama, and Malaysia. The reach extended well beyond Africa and football-specialist communities into mainstream sports audiences and, by this stage, had become heavily concentrated in Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese-language media. This assessment was rated as high confidence.
The depth of stereotyping was assessed with high confidence in terms of documented framing, though with moderate confidence regarding audience internalisation, which cannot be measured from the available data. The most prevalent framing, “Ghanaian witchdoctor,” was used without naming Bonsam, effectively collapsing an individual actor into a national identity label. The escalation of the narrative to Argentina, Croatia, and France further detached it from any actual Ghana match result, effectively positioning Ghana as a recurring supernatural reference point independent of its own performances.
Screenshoot sentimental analysis of supernatural influence in Ghana-England game/Source: Talkwalker
The verdict
The data support two conclusions that can hold simultaneously. First, the reputational exposure to Ghana is real, quantifiable, and broader than initially documented.
A self-generated claim by one spiritualist travelled within days to at least twenty countries across Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, generating millions of TikTok views and tens of thousands of impressions on X and Instagram.
It was subsequently legitimised by a UK tabloid interview before the match result was known, and encountered almost no organic counter-narrative. The phrase “Ghanaian witchdoctor,” stripped of Bonsam’s name, increasingly became a stand-in for the country itself as his claims spread to different jurisdictions. However, Latin American coverage more often identifies Bonsam individually (“el brujo”) than English-language coverage does.
Second, based on the evidence reviewed, this does not appear to be a coordinated smear campaign against Ghana. Rather, it is traceable to one named, self-promoting individual whose claims were amplified through ordinary tabloid-to-social-media-to-meme pathways that DUBAWA’s coordination indicators do not distinguish from organic virality. It also reflects a pattern Bonsam sustained across at least five separate teams over roughly two weeks as the tournament progressed.
The location-mismatch findings involving accounts such as @GeniusOb8832 and @AFC_DNA_, as well as the Canada-tagged influencer anomaly contrasted with the US/East Africa discussion map, remain genuine irregularities worth flagging. Domestic Ghanaian reactions captured in this update, through YEN.com.gh’s comment section, were largely sceptical and mocking of Bonsam rather than credulous. However, this represents a small, self-selected sample and does not offset the international audience exposure documented above.
