Fact check: Erling Haaland has been officially announced as a new signing for Real Madrid by Juan Román Riquelme.

Verdict: false — Trust Score 15/100

Openly AI-made video — graded on what the post actually says. The post claims that Erling Haaland has been officially announced as a new signing for Real Madrid by Juan Román Riquelme. This claim is false, as Haaland's representatives and Manchester City explicitly denied such reports in June 2026, stating they were untrue and that Haaland would remain with Manchester City. Manchester City also threatened legal action over the use of Haaland's image. The video itself is openly acknowledged by the creator as having been made with an AI tool, 'apob.ai'.

Platform
tiktok
Source author
aiworldd2 — see all fact-checks of this account
Original post
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSVqVvJTA/
Verified on
August 26, 2026
Verification ID
eG9ri_UYYSlznk-BpUUzXQ

Original content reviewed

Platform: TIKTOK Author: @aiworldd2 --- Caption/Description --- 😱😲⚽OFICIAL! Haaland anunciado como fichaje de Riquelme para el Real Madrid hice este vídeo con apob.ai, si quieres puedes utilizarlo desde Google @apob_ai #haaland #realmadrid #fyp #viral ---VERIFICATION_SUMMARY--- Platform: TIKTOK Author: @aiworldd2 Person shown on screen (from video analysis): likely Erling Haaland What the video shows (from video analysis): A man in a white soccer uniform, identified as Erling Haaland, stands on a stage, smiling and giving a thumbs-up. He is holding a microphone in his left hand. The background is a solid blue wall. The Real Madrid logo is visible in the top right corner of the video. --- HOW TO VERIFY THIS (provenance-first) --- 1. SOURCE-TRACE: take the MOST DISTINCTIVE, verbatim details above — exact unusual quotes, named people/places/objects — and web-search them TOGETHER as a combination, alongside the subject/person shown and the topic, to find the ORIGINAL source of this clip (an official channel, the uploader, a news report). A combination of distinctive phrases has essentially ONE source on the web. 2. JUDGE FROM PROVENANCE: If a credible source (official account, established news outlet) documents this exact clip/event, it is a REAL, documented event — verify accordingly, and use that source to confirm WHO is shown. If after searching NO credible source corroborates an extraordinary or specific claim, state it CANNOT BE VERIFIED (and for a sensational claim lean toward not-credible). Do NOT default to "verified" on tangential, generic facts. 2b. PARTIAL PROVENANCE IS A RED FLAG, NOT A PASS: finding news coverage of the BACKGROUND event (the place, the deployment, the crisis) while NO source documents the SPECIFIC scene the video depicts is the signature of a synthetic/satirical video grafted onto a real news moment — today's most common misinformation format. When the depicted scene is also extraordinary or absurd (joke unit names on vehicles, food

Claims analyzed (1)

  1. false: Erling Haaland has been officially announced as a new signing for Real Madrid by Juan Román Riquelme.
    Enrique Riquelme, a candidate for the Real Madrid presidency, made claims in June 2026 about signing Erling Haaland if he won the election. However, Haaland's agent and father, along with Manchester City, denied these claims, stating they were "not true" and that Haaland would remain with Manchester City. Manchester City even threatened legal action.

Sources consulted (6)

Related verifications

AI-generated analysis. Not a substitute for professional fact-checking.