Claim
Social media users are sharing videos of some women going topless at a sporting event. They claim it happened at the ongoing FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Verdict
DUBAWA Ghana’s investigation shows that the videos pre-date the Qatar World Cup.
Full text
Different videos of women going topless at sporting events have gone viral on the internet since the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar on Sunday, November 20.
In one of the videos, the incident happened on an escalator. The lady can be seen wearing England’s football team jersey and jeans shorts. Amidst cheers from several others using the escalator, predominantly men, she went topless. According to claimants, this incident happened as England faced Iran on Monday, November 21.
Some online publications reported that the incident happened moments before the England vs Iran game.
The other video has social media users claiming that it happened at the Al Bayt Stadium when Ecuador scored their first goal against host nation Qatar. In the 15-second video, a woman in the supporters’ stance can be seen jubilating whilst being topless after a goal was scored through a penalty kick.
Did these incidents happen in Muslim-majority Qatar?
Verification
While investigating the source of these videos, DUBAWA Ghana used the InVID verification tool to fragment the video into keyframes.
A Google reverse image search was then conducted to identify matching images.
Video 1: Woman in England Jersey who went topless on an escalator
We found one of the videos uploaded on a pornographic website on July 11, 2021, with the caption “England Fan Flashing. It’s Coming Home.” DUBAWA cannot share the link to that website due to ethical considerations. Another user posted the same video on the same website on February 9, 2022. Clearly, the footage existed on the internet at least months before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Video 2: Woman in supporters stance who went topless after a penalty kick was converted
Our search led us to an online publication by the British tabloid newspaper, The Sun. The publication, dated October 19, 2022, is headlined “Fan flashes boobs in ‘wildest celebration ever’ and poses for selfies while topless with fellow supporters.” The publication features the same video, which has gone viral, with social media users claiming it occurred during the Qatar – Ecuador game.
The publication gave the woman’s name as Carla Garza. It explained that the incident happened after former France international Andre-Pierre Gignac scored from the spot to give Tigres UNAL victory against Pachuca. These two teams are based in Mexico.
We found highlights of the Tigres UNAL vs Pachuca game on YouTube and identified some matching scenes when compared to the viral video.
Again, whereas Qatar, who also conceded a goal from the Spot in their game against Ecuador, wore a red jersey, we observed that the colour of the jersey of the team that had conceded the goal in the viral video was not red.
Conclusion
The two viral videos, both showing a woman going topless, did not happen during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
