An election campaign video from Buenos Aires, Argentina is being shared with false claims that it shows the funeral procession of footballer Diego Maradona and large number of fans gathered for the same.
BOOM found that the video dates back to 2019 and the crowd seen were to support the campaign of the then Argentinian president Mauricio Macri.
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Legendary footballer Diego Maradona died on November 25 aged 60. His funeral sparked clashes in Buenos Aires as public viewing of his coffin was cut short for an early burial on November 26. Read more about it here and here.
In the viral video, the camera can be seen panning across a sea of people holding Argentine flags with slogans chanted in the background.
A caption with the video reads '#DiegoMaradona's funeral procession today. Mesmerizing. What does it indicate ? A man par excellence. He is neither a president nor a prime minister of any country. His performance in football ground spoke for him. So much of Love, adulation & respect who gets these days ? He will remain immortal in the hearts of football fans. Maradona..U have gone now in the safe hands of God, but whole football fraternity will remember U as " God of Football" like our own living legend Sachin Tendulkar as " God of cricket" Maradona..Bravo. May your soul rest in eternal peace in the lap of Almighty'.
Watch the viral clip below and check its archived version here.
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The same video has been tweeted with a caption claiming it to be Maradona's funeral.
Another Twitter user BA Raju has shared the clip with a similar false claim.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on a key frame from the viral clip and found the same video uploaded on a YouTube channel on June 11, 2020 with a title in Portuguese that translates to, 'Argentine people revolt against poster Fernandez and Kirchner - Mega Manisfestation.
The nearly 90-second-long video shows the same visuals as the viral video.
We also came across a Fact Check done by AFP Factual on the same video which was viral earlier in June this year with a claim that it showed a mega protest against the Argentine president Alberto Fernández.
The AFP fact check had traced the original video to October 2019 and found that the crowd had turned up 'in favor of the re-election of the then president Mauricio Macri'.
A keyword search with 're-election of Mauricio Macri' led us to news reports about the 'Million March' rally as part of Macri's re-election campaign. The images carried in the report look similar to the visuals in the viral clip.
According to a report published in Reuters on October 20, 2019, the strong crowd had turned up in support of Marci at the southern hemisphere spring sunshine in the center of Buenos Aires.
BOOM also found a similar video tweeted on October 20, 2019 with a Spanish caption that translates to 'The largest political convocation since Alfonsín in 1983. Now, what are the K press going to say that they lie in all of Macri's acts? Nothing is lost. Everything is possible if we take care of every vote'
(Spanish: La convocatoria política más numerosa desde la de Alfonsín en 1983. Ahora que van a decir los medios de prensa de los K que mienten en todos los actos de Macri? NADA ESTÁ PERDIDO. TODO ES POSIBLE SI CUIDAMOS CADA VOTO..)
We compared screenshots taken from the viral video with those from the 2019 video and found them to be one and the same.
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Comparison of screenshots from the video viral as Maradona's funeral and the 2019 video from Twitter
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