FACT CHECK: Video of a lookalike goes viral as Cristiano Ronaldo reading the Quran

Ever since the video of football star Cristiano Ronaldo choosing a bottle of water over a bottle of Coca Cola went viral, netizens have flooded the internet with their response, memes and even claims such as the Coca Cola company has gone through a loss after the footballer chose to drink water over their product.

Amidst this a video showing a man bearing the resemblance of Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo reciting the Quran is doing rounds on social media claiming that Cristiano Ronaldo can be seen reciting the holy book of the Quran.

The caption of the post mentions that “Cristiano Ronaldo Reciting Quran”

Facebook Post | Archive Link

Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by carefully observing the video and found that the video is originally a TikTok video ,as the viral video has Tiktok’s logo. TikTok videos have a feature where the name or the account name of the content-creator is featured at the end. We found that the name at the end of the viral video is mentioned as “@bewarabdullah”. 

Taking a cue from this, we searched this named on Tiktok which led us to the account of “BewarAbdullah”. His username is “Cristiano UK”.  The viral video was posted by him with the caption “Hello Al Kafirun – Ahmed Al Ajamy”.

NOTE– Indian readers might not be able to open this TikTok link due to the government restrictions on the social media app.

Further, we also searched for Bewar Abdullah’s Facebook profile. According to his profile, he lives in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Next, we ran a keyword search on Google to find news reports related to Cristiano Ronaldo’s lookalike named “Bewar Abdullah”. According to a news report published by the Sun.uk, Bewar Abdullah, has been attracting global attention due to his resemblance to Cristiano Ronaldo. Bewar Abdullah left Iraq in 2019 after becoming somewhat of a local celebrity due to his likeness to the Portuguese forward. He lives in Derby and has followed the Portuguese star since he began his career at Sporting Lisbon as a teenager.

He was already popular in Iraq and also attracted attention in England due to his striking resemblance with the Juventus footballer. Abdullah, who himself plays football, follows Ronaldo’s hairstyle and dressing style keenly. In his interview to The Sun, Abdullah said, “I do play football, I play in the same position as him and I wear the number seven shirt — just as he does. My dream is to one day meet him.”

Conclusion- Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the video to be False. The man in the viral video reciting the Quran is not the famous footballer Cristiano Ronaldo but he is an Iraqi immigrant living in the UK whose name is Bewar Abdullah.