Image of Yamal with Palestinian flag after World Cup is AI-generated
- Published on July 20, 2026 at 23:05
- 2 min read
- By Rabih YOUNES
- Translation and adaptation Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
After the Spanish men's national football team toppled Argentina to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, social media users shared an image purporting to show star Lamine Yamal draped in a Palestinian flag during the post-match celebrations. While the teenage phenom previously waved a Palestinian flag during his club FC Barcelona's La Liga title parade in May, the visual circulating after July's World Cup final was altered using artificial intelligence.
"The most beautiful picture of the day," says a July 20, 2026 post on X sharing the image, which depicts 19-year-old Yamal smiling with the championship trophy while wrapped in a Palestinian flag.
Similar posts spread in multiple languages across X and other platforms including Facebook and Instagram.
Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 on July 19 behind a dramatic extra-time goal from Ferran Torres, marking La Roja's second-ever World Cup victory and shattering Lionel Messi's dreams of a bringing home consecutive World Cup wins in what will likely be the 39-year-old legend's last appearance on football's biggest stage.
US President Donald Trump joined FIFA President Gianni Infantino in presenting the trophy to the Spanish side on the pitch in New Jersey, with Rodri claiming the Golden Ball award as the tournament's top player, Unai Simon capturing the Golden Glove for leading performance by a goalkeeper and Pau Cubarsi winning the Best Young Player award.
The win launched Yamal and Cubarsi, also 19, into elite company as two of just 10 teenage players to have ever won a World Cup.
A Muslim born to immigrant parents from Morocco and Equatorial Guinea, Yamal previously made headlines in May 2026 when he held a Palestinian flag from atop a bus as his club team FC Barcelona paraded through the city's streets to celebrate a La Liga championship title.
But the image depicting Yamal wrapped in a Palestinian flag after the World Cup final is a fabrication altered by artificial intelligence.
OpenAI's image verification tool found the visual contained a SynthID -- the invisible watermark integrated from Google that the company embeds in AI-generated media created with its platforms (archived here and here).
Unsurface, a media authentication tool that uses peer-reviewed methods to detect synthetic content, also determined from the image's "forensic traces" that it was "likely AI-generated."
Reverse image searches surfaced the original, unedited FIFA photo published by Getty Images and shared across media outlets, in which there is no Palestinian flag (archived here, here and here).
Yamal was instead wearing, atop his own kit, a version of Spain's jersey that read "Campeones" -- Spanish for "champions" -- on the back.
Yamal posted a similar photo of the same moment to his Instagram (archived here).
AFP also captured photos of Yamal celebrating with the trophy and "Campeones" shirt.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the World Cup here.
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