Fake News: 19-year-old Super Eagles' Goalkeeper Did NOT Celebrates Son's 17th Birthday

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: 19-year-old Super Eagles' Goalkeeper Did NOT Celebrates Son's 17th Birthday

Did the goalkeeper of Nigeria's national soccer team, Francis Uzoho, congratulate his son on his 17th birthday while he himself is only 19 years old? No, that's not true: a story that claimed he did so in a now deleted Facebook post originated on a satire website. It is obviously not true.

The story originated from an article published by News@7 on June 18, 2018 titled "19-year old Super Eagles' Goalkeeper celebrates son's 17th Birthday - News@7" (archived here) which opened:

Nigeria's goalkeeper Francis Uzoho who is 19 years of age is celebrating his second son's 17th birthday today, according to his Facebook post.

In a Facebook post that was immediately deleted, Francis showered words of praises on his son Michael. He posted:

"Wow my second son Michael is 17 today. I seek for God's blessings for him. Daddy loves you boy".

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

19-year old Super Eagles' Goalkeeper celebrates son's 17th Birthday - News@7

Older son is older than the father

We were unable to locate any mention of a Facebook post with the words "Wow my second son Michael is 17 today. I seek for God's blessings for him. Daddy loves you boy" and the only article online that has them was the News@7 post. So it is unclear how the claim that "social Media users are still pouring in their birthday wishes" could be true.

News@7 comes with a satire disclaimer at the bottom of the page so it seems pretty obvious the whole story is just a joke:

Your Attention Needed
sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

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  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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