Fact Check: Photographer did not get emotional Messi’s exit from FC Barcelona club, ​​old picture viral with false claim

New Delhi (Vishvas Team). A picture is going viral on social media after Messi’s departure from FC Barcelona. It is being claimed that a photographer got emotional during the press conference on Messi’s departure from the club. This claim proved to be fake in Vishvas News’ investigation. The man in the viral picture is Iraqi photographer Mohamed al-Azwi, who got emotional after his country’s football team lost in the Asian Cup 2019.

What’s going viral?

The post, which is viral on social media, features Messi’s picture with the photographer, who he can be seen crying. The post claims “This is Love and respect for a G.O.A.T MESSI #Messi A cameraman covering Messi’s farewell”

The link to the post can be seen here.

Investigation

We investigated this claim with the help of Google reverse image. We found this image uploaded on the verified Twitter handle of #AsianCup2023 on Jan 24, 2019. The description read, “Passionate. Emotional moment for an Iraqi photographer during the Round of 16 clash against ! #AsianCup2019”

We also found a report about this at tellerreport.com/ by searching with keywords. According to the news, the photographer seen in the picture is Mohamed Al-Azvi, who cried after his country’s football team lost in the Asian Cup 2019.

We spoke to Dainik Jagran’s sports correspondent Viplav Kumar about this. He told us that this photo is not recent but from the Asia Cup held in 2019.

In a press conference on 08 August 2021, Lionel Messi announced his departure from FC Barcelona after almost 21 years. According to a news published on jagran.com, “Star football player Lionel Messi got emotional during his farewell ceremony for Barcelona on Sunday and said he was not ready to leave the club.”

Finally, we did social scanning of user Shabeer Zain who shared the viral post and we came to know that the user is from Maharashtra and currently residing in Dubai.