A viral video showing a massive crowd is being shared with the claim that it shows the funeral ceremony of football legend Diego Maradona who passed away at home in Tigre after suffering a heart attack.
However, we found that the video is from 2019 and shows several people gathered during a re-election campaign of Mauricio Macri, former president of Argentina.
CLAIM
The video is being circulated to show Maradona’s ‘funeral procession’ with some claiming that it shows the footballer’s last journey, while others saying that it shows “how much greatness he achieved in his career.”
The Quint received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp tipline as well.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
While going through the replies on one of the tweets, we saw that a user had suggested that the video is from 2019 and also shared a YouTube link to support the same.
The YouTube video was uploaded in October 2019 and showed visuals of an event called “Sí Se Puede" (Translation: 'Yes We Can'). However, this video has been shot from a different angle.
Using the Spanish words mentioned in the description of the video, we ran a keyword search on YouTube and found a video uploaded in 2019 that showed the same visuals as that of the viral video.
We also found the live stream of the October 2019 event that took place at Obelisco, Buenos Aires on the YouTube handle of Mauricio Macri, former president of Argentina.
News agency Reuters had also then reported about the event wherein Macri’s supporters had attended a rally as a part of his re-election campaign.
We compared the 2019 video with the viral video and found several similar frames.
We also traced the location of the viral video on Google Earth and the Google street view showed the same physical structures and outlets such as the KFC at Obelisco.
An aerial view of the said location on Google Earth also showed similar physical structures.
PEOPLE GATHERED TO PAY TRIBUTE TO MARADONA AT A DIFFERENT LOCATION
We found that Getty Images had uploaded several images showing people lined up to pay tribute to football legend Diego Maradona outside the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires.
As per Google, the distance between Casa Rosada and Obelisco is 2.4 km and is nearly 10 minutes apart.
Evidently, an old video from Argentina is being circulated with the false claim that it shows the crowd gathered for Maradona’s funeral ceremony.
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