Fact Check: News of Cristiano Ronaldo’s hotel offering refuge to Morocco earthquake survivors is fake

Hyderabad: Several social media users have claimed that football legend Cristiano Ronaldo turned his hotel Pestana CR7 into a shelter for the survivors of the massive earthquake in Morocco.

Click here, here and here to view the posts.

On September 8, a powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.8 struck Morocco killing around 2,900 people and injuring 5,000, as per the latest updates. Several news outlets also published reports of Ronaldo extending help to the earthquake victims.

The reports can be seen here and here.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claims were false.

We started our investigation by performing a keyword search using relevant keywords and found a report on Check News, refuting the viral claim about Ronaldo offering refuge in his Pestana CR7 hotel. “This is false information. All the customers we have at the moment have made a reservation normally,” the report stated, quoting the Pestana CR7 hotel staff. “Cristiano Ronaldo has not made any announcement in this regard,” the report added.

We also found a report by Ynetnews.com, published on September 11, titled ‘Contrary to reports, Ronaldo’s Morocco hotel claims: “we do not host refugees”’.

According to the report, the hotel manager gave a statement that they received many requests to host people because the building was not affected by the earthquake and many guests have indeed arrived but not as refugees.

We also found the same reports on news outlets such as Hindustan Times and Morocco World News dated September 11 reporting the claim as false.

Finally, we also checked the official social media handles of CR7 and Cristiano Ronaldo for any such posts but failed to find any. With this, it is quite evident that the social media abuzz on Ronaldo offering his hotel to Morocco earthquake survivors is false. Although it is true that some actually stayed at the hotel in the aftermath of the earthquake through official booking.