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| - Fact Check: Brazilian star footballer Neymar seen walking around Doha? Nope, it's his lookalike
Footballer Neymar was not walking around Doha while he was injured. It was his lookalike, Eigon Oliver.
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India Today Fact Check
The man seen in the video is not Neymar. It’s Eigon Oliver, a man famous on social media for being Neymar’s lookalike.
In Brazil’s opening game against Serbia at the FIFA World Cup 2022, star footballer Neymar da Silva Santos Jºnior, known popularly through the mononym Neymar, suffered an ankle injury and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of the group stage matches. Brazil will reportedly make a decision on his further involvement in the World Cup after the squad’s final group-stage match against Cameroon.
Amid this, even as Neymar shared a photo of his injury on his Instagram Story, a video began making the rounds on social media that allegedly showed the footballer walking around in Qatar’s capital Doha, surrounded by fans. Even the official Twitter account of FOX Soccer, the football news website of Fox News, tweeted this video, identifying the man in it as Neymar.
AFWA found that the person seen walking in the viral video is not Neymar. It’s a man called Eigon Oliver, who is famous for being the footballer’s doppelgänger.
AFWA PROBE
First, we searched online for news reports on Neymar seen walking around in Doha. This led us to a bunch of news reports that said a “Neymar lookalike” was seen in Qatar during the World Cup. We also noticed that under its original tweet, FOX Soccer had issued a clarification. The tweet said: “UPDATE: we got got,” adding, “Neymar has a very convincing doppelgänger.”
Subsequently, we looked for this supposed lookalike of the footballer. When we searched on Facebook, we found a video uploaded to the official page of the international football news website Goal. The video titled “The Neymar lookalike who is ready to get on the pitch” featured the doppelgänger. His Instagram handle was mentioned in the video: @sosiadoney.
On his verified Instagram account, we found that his name was Eigon Oliver. In the Goal video, Oliver said that he did not even know who Neymar was and was surprised when people asked him for photos. Soon, he started to match his hairstyle and looks with that of the footballer, and started impersonating the star athlete for fun.
We also found a Reuters tweet that contained a video of Oliver. It said, “Eigon Oliver is delighting soccer fans in Qatar thanks to his resemblance to Brazilian forward Neymar.”
Thus, it’s clear that Neymar was not walking around Doha while he was injured. It was his lookalike, Eigon Oliver.
(Written by Ashish Kumar)
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