No, an Iranian footballer wasn’t deported after New Zealand World Cup match

We’ve spotted several posts circulating online claiming that Iranian football player Mohammad Mohebbi was deported after Iran’s first World Cup game against New Zealand.

But the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described these claims as “a hoax” and confirmed “no player from the Iranian soccer team has been deported”.

The claim has been shared across X, Facebook and Instagram, often with the suggestion that Mohebbi’s “gun celebration” is what prompted the supposed deportation.

Mohebbi did perform what looked like a finger-gun gesture after scoring Iran’s second goal in Monday’s match which ended in a 2-2 draw. When asked about the gesture he described it as “just a celebration”.

The first example we could find of the claim was posted by an account with the bio “Home of football jokes - Satire”, suggesting the post was likely made as a joke. And while real photos of the moment exist, the image accompanying the post also appears to have been made or edited with AI. It contains a SynthID watermark that shows it was “generated with OpenAI tools” such as ChatGPT, the OpenAI API, or Codex.

Mohebbi’s teammate Mehdi Torabi had to get a new multiple-entry visa after the first single-entry one expired. But the US State Department and Iran Football Federation said this issue was resolved and he would be able to participate in the remainder of the World Cup.

However, Iran is reportedly lodging a complaint with Fifa over “restrictions imposed by the organisers” on the team at the World Cup. Iran were told they had to fly to their team base in Tijuana, Mexico immediately after their match against New Zealand. The team are allowed to fly into the United States a day before they have a game and have to leave the country on the same day as a match under the conditions of their visas.

Earlier this week we wrote about an AI-generated image of an Iranian footballer holding up a pink backpack that had been shared thousands of times online.

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