Lisbon, July 6, 2025 (Lusa Verifica) - Cristiano Ronaldo remained absent from Portugal, and he did not attend the funerals of footballers Diogo Jota and André Silva. The videos and photos shared on social media are archive images.
+++ Claim: Last-minute videos show Ronaldo arriving in Portugal to attend Diogo Jota’s funeral +++
A video shared on the Facebook profile of a Real Madrid fan from El Salvador, with over 1 million views, claims to show Cristiano Ronaldo arriving in Portugal to attend the funeral of footballers Diogo Jota and André Silva, who died in a road accident in Spain last Thursday.
The images show Ronaldo getting off a bus, entering a glass building and passing through the X-ray detectors that airports usually install. They also show some uniformed security personnel; their exact security force affiliation becomes clear upon further inspection (https://archive.ph/7VXfj).
Other photos and videos of the Portuguese international’s alleged arrival to attend the funeral ceremonies are also circulating, including this one of his alleged arrival at the funeral, which has already been viewed more than 100,000 times on X/Twitter (https://archive.is/UKkWn).
+++ Facts: these are archive videos, and CR7 appeared only in those recordings, not at the funeral +++
A simple analysis of the videos, complemented by a reverse image search of some frames, reveals that both videos are derived from archive footage.
In the first case, the airport images come from a 2018 video of the Portuguese national team’s departure for that year’s World Cup in Russia, and archives from various international media outlets corroborate this information (e.g. https://archive.is/lbPjY). The uniforms with the designation "OMOH" indicated this, a well-known special unit of the Russian National Guard (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidade_M%C3%B3vel_de_Prop%C3%B3sitos_Especiais).
The same applies to the second video, which people have shared dozens of times on various social networks (example: https://archive.is/UKkWn). In fact, these are archive images from 2023, from CR7’s visit to the Singapore Botanic Gardens (examples: https://archive.is/8piR4 and https://archive.ph/8QvJ3).
Furthermore, a quick search of the Portuguese online media, including Lusa, shows that Cristiano Ronaldo remained outside Portugal today, a fact that fans and commentators also mentioned (examples: https://www.lusa.pt/article/45274404, https://archive.is/796JU, https://archive.ph/f27z5 and https://archive.ph/NCiF6).
+++ Lusa Verifica assessment: True +++
Cristiano Ronaldo did not travel to Portugal on Saturday to attend the funeral ceremonies of footballers Diogo Jota and André Silva. The videos circulating on social media are archive footage, and several articles in national and international media outlets confirm that the Portuguese international is absent.
LYGA/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
