Fact Check: Argentina's 2022 World Cup victory parade VIRAL as Messi's farewell

India Today Fact Check found that the video is nearly four years old and shows the victory parade after Argentina's 2022 World Cup win.

India Today Fact Check

Claim
This video shows massive crowds in Argentina celebrating ahead of Lionel Messi’s farewell match.

Fact
The video is from December 2022 and shows huge crowds celebrating Argentina’s FIFA World Cup victory.

Lionel Messi played his final match for Argentina's national team on Tuesday, a 3-0 win over Benin at Buenos Aires's Monumental Stadium, in front of 85,000 fans — and he scored a goal. Amid the emotional send-off, a video showing a massive crowd packed onto a multi-layered elevated overpass has gone viral on social media.

Sharing the video, a Facebook user captioned it: "Crazy scenes in Argentina ahead of Lionel Messi’s farewell. The entire country is out to celebrate Messi today."

India Today Fact Check found that the video is not from Tuesday's farewell match. It is nearly four years old and shows crowds that had gathered in Buenos Aires in December 2022 to celebrate Argentina's World Cup victory.

OUR PROBE

Reverse-searching frames from the viral video led us to the same clip uploaded to the official ESPN FC YouTube channel on December 20, 2022. The caption said, "4 MILLION people in the streets of Argentina", making it evident that the video is related to Argentina's victory in the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Apart from ESPN FC, several other football-related accounts also posted this video on December 20, 2022.

CBS News and others reported at the time that the visuals showed Argentina's chaotic homecoming celebrations on December 20, 2022, two days after the team won the World Cup by beating France. At least four million fans poured onto thoroughfares, highways, and overpasses in Buenos Aires to see the team. This forced players to abandon their parade bus and get airlifted out by helicopter instead, turning the event into what was described as an "aerial parade."

In contrast, multiple reports on Tuesday's farewell match confirmed it was a ticketed, organised event held inside the 85,000-capacity Monumental Stadium, with all 85,000 tickets selling out in 90 minutes.

It is, therefore, clear that this video does not show a parade in honour of Lionel Messi’s retirement from international football.

- Ends