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Claim: A video shared on social media purported to show Ghana’s entry at the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony.
Verdict: False! The video is AI-generated, culled from a two-hour YouTube video. It does not depict the true events at the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico.
Full Text
On June 11, 2026, just moments after the World Cup opening ceremony at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico, a TikTok user, @CharltonKusi, with 11,700 followers, posted a video (archived here) captioned, “Ghana entry at World Cup opening ceremony.”
The video has gained over 238,400 views, 10,600 reactions, and 123 comments. It has been bookmarked by 385 users and generated 390 reshares.
Following @CharltonKusi’s publication, other users on the same platform also shared the video. On Thursday, June 11, 2026, TikTok user @Bluetooth_MediaGh published the video with the caption (archived here), “Ghana displays at the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony.” As of the time of writing, the video had gained over 1.2 million views and attracted over 132,000 reactions from other users.
Additionally, on TikTok, the video has been published here, here, here, and here.
The video has also been shared on Facebook by Cila Adjoa Duffuor II with the caption “Ghana to the whole Ewiase [a Twi word meaning world].” Over 1,400 users on Facebook have reacted to the video, 60 others have commented, and 50 users have shared it.
On Facebook, the video has also appeared here and here.
Under Cila’s Facebook post, Maame Boamaa A-h, Abena Serwaah Mizdor, and Phaphaly Hilda each commented one word in response to the video, “Beautiful,” indicating that they believed the video’s authenticity.
However, other users called out the video for being AI-generated.
Ab Nyarkoaa Ache wrote, “I have been on Supersport since 3 pm and didn’t see this.” Abena Tessy also wrote, “Is this one a different opening ceremony or the one I watched not long ago? I did not see this.”
Mamaga Sitsofe Dzidzor also commented, expressing surprise that people fall for AI-generated content and questioning what part of the video looked real.
The differing opinions the video generated and its virality prompted DUBAWA to carry out a fact-check.
Verification
DUBAWA conducted a reverse image search using snapshots from portions of the video. It was found that the video is a small excerpt of a longer video shared on YouTube by “Festival Universe.”
The roughly two-hour video, titled “FIFA World Cup 2026 Grand Opening | Amazing Music, Fireworks & Unforgettable Performances,” contains the portion that has gone viral as Ghana’s entry at the opening ceremony around the 10-minute mark.
While the video was live, it was liked by over 12,000 people. After the live viewing period, the video was made private, but not before DUBAWA archived it here.
On YouTube, the video had been marked as AI-generated by the platform.
DUBAWA’s findings show that YouTube automatically detects and flags videos that feature significant photorealistic or synthetically altered content. The platform displays an “AI” or “altered content” label in prominent locations across the app to improve transparency.
YouTube has moved AI disclosure labels from the hidden description box to more visible areas so viewers immediately know what they are watching. For long-form videos like the one published by Festival Universe, the label appeared directly above the description box.
DUBAWA’s independent verification, using AI detection tools such as aiornot.com and hivemoderation.com, validated YouTube’s label. AiorNot.com indicated that the video has a 66% AI and 12% deepfake possibility.
Result on AIorNot.com
Hivemoderation.com rated it 59.2% AI-generated, with some of the individually analysed frames 97.6% likely AI-generated.
Result on Hive Moderation
DUBAWA also reviewed the official FIFA page, which featured portions of the World Cup opening ceremony, including performances by Shakira, Burna Boy, Andrea Bocelli, David Guetta, and EJAE.
Conspicuously absent was any footage showing Ghana’s entry, or the entry of other countries, onto the pitch.
Other AI-Generated videos on YouTube
Other videos have also appeared on YouTube, offering their own depictions of the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony. The YouTube account Media Focus, with 475,000 subscribers, published a three-minute and 39-second-long video [archived here] titled “LIVE: FIFA World Cup 2026 Opening Ceremony | Official Opening Show.” A closer look at the description, however, indicates that the video was AI-generated, noting that it was created using advanced AI-powered cinematic technology. The video has since generated over 2.2 million views.
Another video, published by Super Anjna [archived here] with 260k subscribers and titled “LIVE: World Cup 2026 Opening Ceremony | Epic Music, Fireworks & The Greatest Stadium Show Ever,” streamed for over 11 hours and had garnered over 31,000 views. It, too, had been marked as AI-generated, with a similarly worded disclosure citing the use of advanced AI cinematic technology, in line with YouTube’s guidelines on AI-generated content.
Conclusion
The viral video supposedly showing Ghana’s entry at the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony is an AI-generated clip lifted from a longer, fabricated YouTube video. There is no evidence on FIFA’s official channels that such a segment ever took place.
This report was produced under the 2026 Kwame Karikari Fact-checking and OSINT Fellowship, co-hosted by DUBAWA and the Digital Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DAIDAC), with support from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).
