Drone tribute video to Cristiano Ronaldo after Portugal's World Cup elimination is AI-generated
- Published on July 15, 2026 at 13:31
- 4 min read
- By AFP Brazil
- Translation and adaptation Mike YAMBO, AFP Kenya
Following Portugal's elimination from the 2026 World Cup, a video purporting to show a drone tribute to Cristiano Ronaldo on his home island of Madeira circulated in posts marking the team’s exit, and possibly the football star’s final appearance at a World Cup. However, this is false; AFP Fact Check found that the footage was generated using artificial intelligence.
“A drone farewell was done for Cristiano Ronaldo in his hometown in Madeira after he played his last game for Portugal,” reads the caption of a Facebook post shared in Nigeria on July 7, 2026, a day after Portugal’s 2-1 defeat to Spain.
The result ended the team’s campaign and possibly marked Ronaldo’s final World Cup appearance.
The video shows drones forming a Portuguese flag, the words “Obrigado, 7” (which translates as “Thank you, 7”), and a stylised figure performing Ronaldo’s trademark jump-and-turn celebration over a bay.
The clip has racked up hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds of shares on Instagram, X, Threads and TikTok.
Similar posts circulated in English, Arabic and French.
Social media users sharing the video claimed the display was staged on Madeira Island, Ronaldo’s birthplace, in honour of his career with the Portuguese national team -- despite the loss that ended the country’s World Cup campaign on July 6.
However, the purported tribute video is an AI creation.
Not a real event
A reverse image search of screenshots from the viral clip traced it back to the same footage published on Instagram by CazéTV, one of the Brazilian broadcasters covering the World Cup in the US (archived here).
The channel’s caption makes the AI origin explicit, with the translation from Portuguese reading: “An AI-generated video shows what CRISTIANO RONALDO’s farewell would be like with a drone show on Madeira Island, in Portugal!”
CazéTV credited the account “@seihanaifilms” for creating the footage (archived here).
Tracing that handle to TikTok led to the original post, where the creator himself disclosed that the video was AI-generated and offered to share the prompts used to produce it (archived here).
The TikTok caption specifies that the clip was made using PixVerse, an AI tool that generates videos and images from text prompts (archived here).
Analysis of the video using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, found a 99.9 percent probability that it was an AI creation.
According to analysis using Google’s SynthID, a tool that detects hidden watermarks in content generated by the company’s AI tools, the video had presence of the technology “in all or part of the uploaded content”.
AFP contacted the owner of the account “@seihanaifilms” -- whose bio clearly states "AI Video Creator & Digital Filmmaker" -- who confirmed that the content was created with AI.
The same profile features similar content, including a goal by Lionel Messi against goalkeeper Vozinha that was reportedly shown at the Obelisk in Buenos Aires (archived here).
A Google keyword search with the terms “Madeira Island”, “drones” and “Cristiano Ronaldo” yielded no record of a similar demonstration held for the Portuguese star in his hometown following Portugal’s defeat.
AFP Fact Check originally debunked the claim here in Portuguese.
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