Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT Show V Sign To Avoid Shaking Hands With Trump

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Does a viral clip accurately document what happened during the 2026 FIFA World Cup award ceremony when Spanish soccer player Lamine Yamal came to the podium to receive a medal from Donald Trump? No, that’s not true: Contrary to claims on social media, Yamal didn’t refuse to shake hands with U.S. President Donald Trump: their handshake was well-documented by multiple recordings. Posts insisting that Yamal showed the V sign instead spread an AI video.

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The claim appeared in a reel (archived Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT and Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT) published on Facebook by @rush.darwish.5 on July 19, 2026, under the caption:

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Spain Star Lamine Yamal is the people’s champion after this snub on Trump 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

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This is what the thumbnail from the reel looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

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The video published on the day of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final won by Spain (archived Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT) purported to show that one of the team’s players, Lamine Yamal (neither of those is his last name, archived Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT), allegedly moved his hand away from Trump to show the V sign instead of shaking hands with the U.S. president handing out gold medals.

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However, that was not what actually happened.

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In this C-SPAN recording, Yamal enters the frame at the 12:52 mark.

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The Spanish player shakes hands with Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA. Then, as Infantino hugs him, Trump extends his hand toward Yamal:

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There is a brief moment of hesitation on Yamal’s end, as he seem to have been listening to what Infantino was saying to him, but after that, Yamal shakes hands with Trump:

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Recordings published by Fox 29 Philadelphia (archived Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT) and “Diario AS” (archived Fact Check: Lamine Yamal Did NOT), a Madrid-based outlet covering soccer, also showed the handshake, not the V sign.

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The video reviewed in this fact check showed signs strongly pointing to AI. One was the illegible inscription behind Trump’s back:

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Then, Yamal’s patch changes its contents in fractions of a second. At first, it shows some abstract shape paired with unreadable letters:

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Then, the word FIFA appears in the patch out of nowhere:

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According to ZeroGPT, the frame purporting to capture Yamal showing the victory sign to Trump to avoid shaking hands with him, was “97% FAKE”:

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Both InVID and Sightengine said it was 99% likely to have been generated by AI:

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