Saudi Arabia scripted history in the ongoing FIFA World Cup on November 22, 2022, when they beat the two-time World Cup champion, Argentina, in the group C opener match in Lusail. The players were praised all over the world, as this was only the 4th win for Saudi Arabia in the history of FIFA World Cup.
Against this backdrop, a video showing Saudi Arabia’s national team with their Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, is doing the rounds on social media. The Crown Prince can be heard threatening the players and telling them of the dire consequences that would happen if they lose any match in the tournament.
A Facebook user posted the viral video with the caption: Listen to the promises made to the Saudia Arabia Team Football is Real. Kaga Masuyi da Gaske.
You can check the video here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral video, and found it to be false.
To begin with, if something of this magnitude had been spoken to the football team, it would have made headlines in many publications. But we did not find any news about the warnings given by the prince to his team.
Conducting a Google Keyword Search, we identified a YouTube video, titled: ‘Enjoy the games!’ – Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince encourages national team players ahead of World Cup, dated October 24, 2022, published on the official channel of Al Arabiya English — the English arm of the International Arabic news television channel.
The description, informs that the meeting happened ahead of their participation in the World Cup. The prince encouraged the national team and told them to ‘enjoy the games’. We could not find any threats or promises made in the entire video.
The post in another news article — titled: Crown Prince meets with Saudi national team squad amid World Cup preparations, published in the Arab News, dated October 23, 2022 — matches the viral video.
Also, a tweet, published on the official account of Arab News | Sport, dated October 24, 2022, mentions that prince met with the team in his Jeddah office and encouraged them to the tournament.
The video in the tweets matches with the viral clip, and here too, we cannot hear any threats or promises being given to the players.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral video, claiming the Crown Prince threatened Saudi’s national football team for losing a match in FIFA World Cup, is false.
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