​Online fans of Cristiano Ronaldo are circulating a series of videos that allegedly capture a massive crowd celebrating the Portuguese football superstar during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. However, the clips have been misrepresented, and in several instances they are overlaid with unrelated audio of a chorus chanting the striker’s name. In reality, the original footage dates from before the World Cup and shows supporters of a Polish football club celebrating their team’s promotion in Kraków.
A July 4, 2026 post on Instagram states, “FIFA loves Messi, but the world loves Ronaldo,” and features a video of a large crowd jumping and chanting in a city square at night. A screenshot from Instagram taken on July 8, 2026 accompanies the claim. Similar posts across platforms such as Facebook and X proliferated, with some videos purportedly paying homage to Ronaldo and including audio of people singing the Portugal national team legend’s name. Others circulated a slightly different angle of the same celebration.
These posts surfaced in the run-up to Portugal’s last-16 defeat to Spain, a 1-0 result that concluded what the 41-year-old forward, who plays for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr FC, described as his final World Cup appearance. Yet the footage does not depict World Cup activity.
Reverse image searches traced the first video to a Kraków-based photographer who posted it as early as May 24 on Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube, with captions stating that it showed Wisła Kraków fans celebrating the club’s promotion to Poland’s top flight, the Ekstraklasa. Archived versions of these posts are available. The photographer’s Instagram post was shared in collaboration with the club’s official account, which also published other crowd photos. A second video, showing the same scene from a different angle, originated from another Polish photographer who similarly described it on Facebook and Instagram as depicting Wisła Kraków fans on May 24. Her watermark appears in some posts that misrepresent the footage. The crowd in both clips is seen singing, in Polish, a song associated with the club, a British journalist for AFP confirmed.
AFP also published photos on May 24 illustrating the same crowd. Google Street View images of Kraków’s Main Square reveal the same statue, basilica, and church seen in the videos, corroborating the location. AFP provided screenshots from YouTube dated July 8, 2026, highlighting elements in the footage, and compared them with Google Street View images from the same date. AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about Ronaldo’s 2026 World Cup campaign, reinforcing that these particular clips are unrelated to the tournament.