Cristiano Ronaldo did not convert to Buddhism
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 25, 2023 at 11:12
- 2 min read
- By AFP Thailand
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"UK based news agency Newsaline had reported that the world’s famous footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has converted from Islam to Buddhism," reads a Burmese-language Facebook post shared on August 7.
AFP has previously debunked false claims about the player converting to Islam.
The post, which has more than 200 shares, shows a photo of Ronaldo with a shaven head and wearing saffron monk robes.
Burmese-language text superimposed on the photo says: "I am applying for a visa to Myanmar to practice Buddhism after learning about Theravada Buddhism".
Theravada is a school of Buddhism popular in Southeast Asia which claims to adhere most closely to the original doctrines and practices taught by the Buddha.
The post also says that Ronaldo will donate millions of dollars to monasteries and temples.
Comments on the post suggest that it misled social media users in Myanmar, where the majority of the population are Buddhists.
"Even Buddha wasn't a buddhist in all of his past lives," reads a comment under the post.
Another social media user wrote: "It has paid off to be his fan".
The photo has been shared with similar claims on Facebook here and here.
Catholic faith
Ronaldo has spoken publicly about his Catholic faith, telling Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport in 2018 he goes to church every week (archived link).
A reverse image search on Google showed that the photo had been digitally altered, and the original photo shows a well-known Buddhist monk from Myanmar.
The original photo was published on the website of Reuters news agency on June 27, 2013 (archived link).
The photo caption says: "Buddhist monk Wirathu (C), leader of the 969 movement, greets other monks as he attends a meeting on the National Protection Law at a monastery outside Yangon June 27, 2013".
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo from the misleading post (left) and Reuters' photo (right):
Wirathu led Myanmar's firebrand nationalist movement, and was described as "the face of Buddhist terror" by Time magazine in 2013 after his sermons that fuelled hatred against ethnically Rohingya people -- a Muslim minority from Rakhine state.
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