Fact Check: Old video of football fan smashing TV falsely linked to recent Indo-Pak cricket match

Hyderabad: Recently, an India versus Pakistan World Cup cricket match took place on October 14 at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. India’s victory over Pakistan led to the circulation of unrelated and old videos of Pakistani fans expressing their disappointment with their match’s result.

In such a viral video, a man can be seen punching and stabbing his TV with a knife while crying out loud. The green t-shirt (the color of the Pakistan cricket team’s jersey) worn by the person in the video has led social media users to assume that the person is from Pakistan.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false.

We started our investigation by performing a keyword search with the keyframes of the video. We found the video uploaded on the YouTube handle of a media outlet The Hindustan Mirror. The video in the Hindustan Mirror channel was titled ‘Mexico fan widely destroyed TV with a knife in an emotional outburst after World Cup heartbreak,’ dated December 2, 2022.

The report in the description reads, “A rabid El Tri supporter has gone viral with his unhinged reaction to Mexico’s heartbreaking ouster from the World Cup. Footage posted to Twitter showed the man clobbering a large flat-screen TV with his hands and then stabbing it with a knife while unleashing a blood-curdling scream. The reason for his epic meltdown was Mexico’s elimination on Wednesday – even though the team defeated Saudi Arabia 2-1. The problem was the team needed some help to advance to the round of 16 in Qatar. But things didn’t quite fall into place, as the man-made abundantly clear.”

Taking this as a cue, we performed a keyword search to find more media reports.

The search led us to a report on The Sun titled ‘MEXI-NO: Watch distraught Mexico fan repeatedly STAB and punch TV after World Cup 2022 exit’ dated December 1, 2022. Carrying multiple stills from the viral video, the report reads, “Mexico finished 3rd in Group C behind Poland and Argentina, missing out on a knockout spot-on goal difference.”

“It was the first time since 1978 that Mexico was eliminated from the World Cup in the group stage. And one fan didn’t take the early exit well as he broke his TV with his fists. Donning a Mexico shirt, the distraught man punched his TV until it broke. Not satisfied with the job he had done, despite cracks showing as well as the screen going green, the fan grabbed a knife,” it added.

With this, it is evident that the video is old and is not related to the recent World Cup cricket match between India and Pakistan.