Video claiming Neymar attended Messi's farewell match is old
A video was spread on Facebook claiming that Neymar Jr traveled to Argentina to watch Lionel Messi’s farewell match. However, Dismislab’s fact-check found that the video is not from the time of Messi’s farewell match in Argentina. It shows Neymar leaving a hotel in Maceió, Brazil, in May 2025, ahead of a Copa do Brasil match between CRB and Santos FC.
The 20-second video was posted on Oct 7 from the verified Facebook page of “BDSportsTime” , a sports-focused online news outlet. The caption read, “Neymar rushes from Brazil to Argentina to watch Messi play.” The video shows Neymar, wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts, walking past a crowd of fans alongside security personnel. As of this report’s publication, the post had received more than 10,000 reactions and had been shared more than 100 times.
In addition to BDSportsTime, images and videos making the same claim were also posted from several other Facebook accounts (1, 2).
To verify the video, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search using several keyframes. This led to the same video on a verified Instagram account named “aiwabr”, posted on May 24, 2025. The caption on the post, written in Portuguese, read, “Neymar Jr.’s arrival in Maceió yesterday, with AIWA earbuds.”
A search using relevant keywords also turned up a report from the Brazilian news outlet Rádio Itatiaia, published on May 22, 2025. The report said fans surrounded Neymar that day as he left a hotel in Maceió. A few hours later, Santos was scheduled to play CRB at Estádio Rei Pelé in the second leg of their third-round Copa do Brasil match. According to the report, Neymar was in Maceió with the Santos team at the time.
A report published by CNN Brasil on May 22, 2025, also provided details on the match. According to the report, CRB and Santos faced off at Estádio Rei Pelé in Maceió in the second leg of their third-round Copa do Brasil match. Neymar, who had returned to the Santos lineup after recovering from an injury, came on as a substitute during the match.
Ahead of Messi’s farewell match, the same video was also used in other countries to falsely claim that Neymar had arrived in Buenos Aires. Rádio Itatiaia published a report on this on Oct 6. It said several websites and a television channel had circulated the video as footage of Neymar leaving a hotel in Buenos Aires for Messi’s farewell match. But Rádio Itatiaia’s verification identified the video as being from Santos’ match against CRB in Maceió in May 2025. The outlet also reported that Neymar was not present at Messi’s farewell event.
Information indicating that Neymar was in Brazil on the day of Messi’s farewell match was also found in a report by CNN Brasil. A CNN Brasil report from Oct 6 shows that Neymar was in São Paulo that day, attending a birthday celebration for his daughter, Mavie.
Neymar did, however, send Messi well-wishes on social media for his farewell match. According to the Rádio Itatiaia report, the former Brazilian star praised Messi’s football career in a message posted on Instagram.
In other words, the video circulating with claims that Neymar traveled from Brazil to Argentina to watch Messi’s farewell match is not from that event. Footage from a different time and occasion has been circulated as video of Neymar traveling to Argentina for Messi’s farewell match.
At the time of this report’s publication, BDSportsTime had removed the post from its own Facebook page. The outlet reposted the same video with a correction and apologized to viewers in the comments.
It is worth noting that Messi played his last international match for Argentina on Oct 6. The friendly match against Benin was organized at Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires to mark his farewell.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
