After football great Lionel Messi won the ‘Best FIFA men’s player prize for 2022‘, a video surfaced on Internet showing him returning the award to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The text on the video reads: “Messi refuses to take the award because Benzema deserved it more. What a man!”
The above post can be seen here. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above video, and found it to be doctored.
Putting the keyframes of the video through Reverse Image Search, we identified the same video on the official YouTube channel of Forbes Middle East dated February 28, 2023, in which Messi can be seen accepting the award.
We found the video of the entire award ceremony on the official YouTube channel of FIFA and found the exact time counter of the video in question at 01:39:31. We did not find any credible report suggesting that Messi had returned the Best FIFA men’s player prize for 2022.
Upon closely observing the video, we established that the original video was reversed using editing software denoting that Messi had returned the award.
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