The video of a football match purported to be from FIFA 2022 is going viral online with claims that the match was paused for sometime when the azaan (Islamic call to prayer) started playing.
BOOM found that the claim is false, and the actual incident took place more than four years ago in 2018.
The FIFA 2022 World Cup commenced on 20 November. Recently, a clip has been going viral online that claims a match in the tournament was paused out of respect as soon as Azaan, a call of prayer for Muslims, started playing.
The video is captioned on Facebook as, "Masha Allah fifa worldcup match stop to during azan 💞💞💞💞 #qatar #Allah"
Click here to view the post.
Here is another post with the same claim.
Click here to view the post.
The same claim is also circulating on Twitter.
Click here to view the post and here for the archive.
None of the clips mention when this incident took place, or which teams were playing when this happened.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the video is from January 2018 and not from the FIFA World Cup that began in November 2022.
We ran a search on Facebook with the words "fifa match stopped during azan" and found the same video from the viral claim, except, it was uploaded on 30 January, 2018. The post also mentioned that the incident was from Saudi Arabia.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search on Google with using "30 january 2018 football match in saudi arabia azan match stops" and found a story by the BBC published on 25 January, 2018.
According to the report, Mark Clattenburg, a Premier League referee, stopped the match between Al Feiha and Al-Fateh as soon as the Azaan started playing. He did this to show respect for the Islamic call of prayer and earned a lot of praise for his gesture.
The match was being held at the King Salman Sport City Stadium when Azaan from nearby mosques was heard. The game was in the fifth minute of extra time when Clattenberg halted it. Al-Feiha scored their second goal in the 118th minute, winning the match with a score of 2-1 and making it to the quarter finals.
The BBC report also redirects to a Twitter event where a clear video of the incident can be found, along with praises for Clattenberg.
