2022 World Cup fact check: Japan fans clean up stadium

The 2022 FIFA World Cup has been running for eight days since November 28 and will continue through December 18. One of the biggest disappointments so far of the tournament was the win 2. Japan’s -1 against Germany on 23 November.

A viral tweet posted on November 27 claimed Japanese fans made a mess of the stadium after the win. A video with more than 5 million views, posted along with the tweet, shows fans taking trash out of bags and planting them in the stadium.

“The scene of Japanese fans taking trash out of bags and throwing it all over the stadium while laughing and talking. Disgraceful scenes,” the tweet read.

Are Japanese fans scattered in a World Cup stadium?

No, the fans aren’t scattered – they pick it up. Video has been reversed to make false claims. Japanese culture often picks up trash in public places, such as stadiums.

Using InVid, a video forensics tool, VERIFY analyzed the keyframes of the video and conducted a reverse image search of the frames.

The original, real video was posted to the Alkass Sports Channel Twitter account on November 23. Alkass Sports is a licensed broadcaster of the FIFA World Cup and operated by the Qatari government.

The tweet, written in Arabic and translated via Google Translate, read: “Despite the win against Germany, the Japanese fans did not forget their traditions after the match was over.”

In the actual video, fans actually picked up trash and put it in a trash bag.

The edited viral tweet and video posted on November 27 shows part of the video posted by Alkass, starting at the 57-second mark. However, that video has been edited and reversed, making it appear that the people in the video are pulling trash out of a bag instead of putting it in a bag.

In the viral video, people can be seen walking backwards, which further confirms that the video has been edited and reversed.

Thousands of people commented on the viral video or reposted it said that the video had been reversed and criticized the poster for editing the video. Some everyone just out that cleanup after events is part of Japanese culture.

“For the Japanese, this is just the normal thing to do,” Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu told The Associated Press. “When you leave, you have to leave a place that is cleaner than before. That is the education we were taught. That’s the basic culture we have. For us, it’s nothing special.”

A spokesman for the Japan Football Association told The Associated Press it was providing 8,000 trash bags to help fans pick up trash after matches with a “thank you” message outside written in Arabic, Japanese and English. VERIFY contacted the Japan Football Association independently but received no response at the time of publication.

During the 2018 World Cup, fans from Japan and SenegaI was also spotted cleaning the stadiums there.