By: Rajini KG
June 2 2023
No, Saudi government hasn't gifted Cristiano Ronaldo a gold-plated bike
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
A Saudi-based biker's customized bike has been shared as a gift by the Saudi government to Ronaldo.
Claim ID ee60e8b7
Context
Former Indian police officer turned politician Kiran Bedi shared a video of a golden bike on May 21 claiming that it was a gift from the Saudi Arabian government to footballer Christiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo joined the Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr on December 30 last year after leaving Manchester United. The 27-second video shows that the superbike was inscribed with Arabic words and has been named "The Storm," as per the text seen on the seat of the motorcycle. The video also shows several other parked bikes with people standing around them. The video shared by Bedi has received nealry 1.3 million views and over 13,500 likes.
However, the claim is false. There are no reports of the Saudi Arabia government gifting a gold-plated motorbike to Ronaldo.
In Fact
We accessed the social media accounts of Ronaldo but found no announcement of such a gift from the Saudi government.
While analyzing the viral video, we noticed that the video contained a TikTok watermark, and was uploaded by the user '@a2aqq.' While we did not find the video on the user’s personal account, many users had cross-posted the video. At the 0:24 second timestamp, a Saudi Arabia flag behind the bike can be spotted, with the Instagram ID 'faisal_abu-sara' on the top left side corner of the green cloth. The Instagram ID led us to the profile of Faisal Abu Sara, which carried the images and videos of a similar bike.
On November 2018, Abu Sara posted the video of the bike with the caption: "The storm bike has been equipped with a new shape, which is distinguished very briefly by the past, present and future era of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Further research showed us that the bike, modified in 2018, was displayed at many shows.
Muhyi Alshehri, who formerly worked at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, also shared the images of the bike on his Twitter account on January 28, 2019. He also mentioned that the bike's parts are made of 24-carat gold. In the following tweet, Alshehri shared the picture of Sara and thanked him and his team for representing Saudi Arabia in many exhibitions and tournaments.
In another Instagram video posted by 'yalla_brothers' on March 26, 2019, Sara claims that he modified the Suzuki Hayabusa bike, and used 24-carat gold in the modification. The Facebook account of one 'Turbo King' shared ‘The Storm’ bike video and gave credit to the owner @faisal_abu_sara on May 17, 2020.
The Verdict
The video of a superbike named 'The Storm,' owned by Faisal Abu Sara, was falsely claimed to be a gift to footballer Cristiano Ronaldo from the Saudi government. Therefore, we are marking this claim as false.
