Football celebration clip mislabeled as Albanian protests against Kushner-linked project
- Published on June 12, 2026 at 23:14
- 2 min read
- By Ali ZALZALI
- Translation and adaptation Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Protests have swelled across Albania since late May 2026 in opposition to the development of a luxury beach resort linked to US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. But a video spreading online of a massive gathering crowding a beach is unrelated; the footage captured a celebration of fans backing the Spanish football club Deportivo La Coruña.
"Mass protests erupted in Albania after part of Albanian territory was sold to USA and Israel," says a June 3, 2026 post on X.
Text over the video -- which also spread across Facebook, Instagram, Threads and TikTok -- reads: "Albania. Israel go away our land is not for sale."
Similar posts appeared in multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish and French.
The posts cropped up amid weeks of protests from Albanians against plans for a project connected to Ivanka Trump and her husband Kushner, a luxury resort development slated for construction in a protected area on the country's Adriatic coast.
Demonstrators and conservation groups say the plan poses a risk to the environment and a nearby lagoon critical to migrating birds -- impacts that could slow Albania's path to join the European Union.
Albania's anti-corruption prosecutor has also confirmed an investigation into funds used to purchase the land in Zvernec.
The unrest began with protests in late May in Zvernec, where dozens of people turned out against the installation of barbed wire blocking access to the beach, before extending to the capital of Tirana.
The video circulating online, however, does not show the protests in Albania.
Reverse image searches surfaced a clearer version of the clip posted May 31 to TikTok by a fan of the Spanish football club Deportivo La Coruña who also published several other videos of the same gathering (archived here, here, here and here). A Facebook account dedicated to covering the team also posted the clip that day (archived here).
The crowd consisted of fans celebrating near the club's stadium in La Coruña, a coastal city in northwestern Spain's Galicia region, after the team secured its return to La Liga, the first division of the Spanish football league system. The team will return to the top flight after eight seasons away, having secured a second-place finish behind league leaders Racing Santander, who had already clinched their own return for the first time in 14 years.
Other videos and photos shared to social media, including on the team's official Instagram account, show the same beachfront scene captured from various angles (archived here and here).
AFP confirmed the location of the video in La Coruña, matching the stadium and other landmarks to those visible in Google Earth satellite imagery (archived here).
AFP photos from protests in Zvernec showed far fewer people and a different coastline featuring no buildings or roads.
AFP has debunked other online misinformation targeting Europe here.
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