Video doesn't show Pep Guardiola ignoring an 'Israeli representative' at a match

By: Tahil Ali
May 31 2024

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Users on X claim that Pep Guardiola ignores an Israeli representative during a post-match ceremony (Source: X / Modified by Logically Facts).

What is the claim?

Social media users are sharing a video of Manchester City's manager, Josep 'Pep' Guardiola, seemingly refusing to shake hands with an Israeli representative after a football game. The video shows Guardiola shaking hands with everyone except one individual, circled in yellow and marked with an Israeli flag.

One user on X, formerly Twitter, posted this video with the caption, "Watch Manchester City Football Manager Pep Guardiola deliberately ignore the Israeli representative in refusing to shake his hand." 

These videos have gained considerable attention across various social media platforms such as X, Facebook, and Instagram. One post by an X user has had more than​​ 7.5 million views. 

Users on X claim Pep Guardiola ignored an Israeli official during a post-match ceremony (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts).

The archived links for these posts are available here, here, here, and here.

The video in question emerged days after Manchester City's 2-1 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium on May 25, 2024.

However, the viral video was not taken during the post-match ceremony for this game. It dates back to August 2023, and the man Guardiola seemingly snubbed is a former Crystal Palace manager.

What are the facts?

After conducting a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video, we found the original full-length video on 'The Emirates FA Cup's YouTube channel. The viral video's footage can be seen between the timestamps of 2:06:00 to 2:06:26 and showed the livestream of the FA Community Shield match between Arsenal and Manchester City on August 27, 2023.

Through the keyword searches, we could identify that the man supposedly snubbed by Guardiola was Alan Smith, a former Crystal Palace manager. The incident occurred after the post-match ceremony where all the players and Guardiola collected medals, as seen in the video. In the match in question, in August 2023, Manchester City suffered a defeat against Arsenal.

News reports by Sport Bible and the Daily Star carried photos of the moment, stating that the man snubbed by Guardiola is Smith, not an Israeli representative.

Screenshot of a news report about the incident from August 2023. (Source: Sport Bible / Modified by Logically Facts).

We also checked photos of Smith available on his social media profiles (archived here and here) and confirmed that the man seen in the video is, indeed, the former Crystal Palace manager.

Screenshot of X posts of Alan Smith posing with Alistair Cook and the ceremony (Source: X: AG_Smithy/Modified by Logically Facts).

It is clear the video also predates the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. However, the reason Guardiola did not shake hands with Smith is unknown. 

Alan Smith's response to the incident

In replies (archived here) to questions on social media about the moment, Smith joked that Guardiola had perhaps thought he was someone to do with Arsenal.

We also came across another tweet from August 2023, in which an X user shared (archived here) a clipped video of the incident and asked Smith about the incident. In response, Smith made a lighthearted remark saying, "Think he knew FA guest and not happy with injury time and new rules 👍😂😂😂no offence emotional game"

The verdict

The viral video does not show Pep Guardiola seemingly refusing to shake hands with an Israeli representative at a football match. The video is from August 2023, and the individual on the receiving end of the supposed snub is Alan Smith, a former Crystal Palace manager, not an Israeli representative. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.