An old video showing a group of children sitting inside a stadium wearing traditional Arab attire and reciting verses of the Quran is going viral on social media.
What is it being shared as?: It is being said that it is from the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup being held in Qatar.
An archive can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
(The same claim has been widely shared on Facebook.)
Where is the video actually from?: The video is from Qatar, but it shows the inauguration ceremony of Al Thumama Stadium, which happened in October 2021.
How did we find out the original video?: We ran a reverse image search of some of the keyframes of the viral video and came across an old video uploaded by a news channel from Qatar, Doha News.
Doha News had tweeted the longer version of the same video on 24 October 2021.
The tweet read, "This is how Qatar incorporated its Islamic Culture at the inauguration of the World Cup Al Thumama stadium. Children were seen reciting verses on ‘mercy’ from the Quran."
We also compared the viral video with the original video and found several similarities.
(Note: Swipe to check out more similar frames from both the videos.)
Comparison between the viral video and the news video from 2021.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
More about the ceremony from 2021:
We also found a news report from a Hindi, English and Urdu language newspaper, The Siasat Daily that specified that the unveiling ceremony of Al Thumama Stadium happened on 22 October 2021 and involved school children.
The report also mentioned that the stadium hosted the Amir Cup Final on the same day.
Inauguration ceremony of 2022 FIFA World Cup: The opening ceremony of FIFA World Cup 2022 took place at the Al Bayt Stadium on 20 November.
Hollywood star Morgan Freeman and South Korean band BTS' Jung Kook attended the ceremony.
Conclusion: Clearly, an old video of a stadium's unveiling is being falsely shared as a the opening ceremony of FIFA World Cup.
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