Did your favorite sports star "shock fans" or "shake" the league by "publicly" or "flatly" refusing to wear an LGBT Rainbow Armband because it would turn the game "into a political circus"? No, that's not true: The claim was made about at least 95 football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and hockey players in posts published on dozens of fake Facebook fan pages aimed at American and European audiences, but produced from Vietnam. It's part of a clickbait operation that uses AI tools known by fact checkers as Viet Spam.
One example of a post (archived here) making the claim about Los Angeles Chargers player Ladd McConkey published on the "Bolt Up Heroes" page on January 21, 2026. Other athletes targeted with the false claim include:
Carlos Alcaraz, Josh Allen, Brandon Aubrey, Bear Bachmeier, Saquon Barkley, Carson Beck, Connor Bedard, Nick Bosa, Kayshon Boutte, Tyler Buchner, Joe Burrow, Trinidad Chambliss, Jalen Chatfield, Keon Coleman, Audi Crooks, Jayden Daniels, Sam Darnold, Alex de Minaur, Oscar Delp, Stefon Diggs, Aj Dybantsa, Isaiah Evans, Enzo Fernández, Joe Flacco, Dayton Forsythe, Donnie Freeman, Freddie Freeman, Marcus Freeman, Myles Garrett, Coco Gauff, Jared Goff, Draymond Green, Dre Greenlaw, Denny Hamlin, Justin Herbert, TreVeyon Henderson, Nyziah Hunter, Aidan Hutchinson, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Derwin James Jr., Justin Jefferson, Daniel Jones, Mikail Kamara, Alex Karaban, Spencer Knight, Cooper Kupp, Jett Lawrence, Trevor Lawrence, Xaivian Lee, Jayden Maiava, Arch Manning, Mitch Marner, John Mateer, Austin Matthews, Baker Mayfield, Ladd McConkey, Connor McDavid, Fernando Mendoza, Dante Moore, Behren Morton, Puka Nacua, Bo Nix, Martin Ødegaard, Otega Oweh, Manny Pacquiao, Danica Patrick, Koa Peat, Michael Penix Jr., Paddy Pimblett, Dak Prescott, Jayden Quaintance, Marcel Reed, Austin Riley, Aaron Rodgers, Deion Sanders, Julian Sayin, LaNorris Sellers, Austin Simmons, Ty Simpson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Jeremiah Smith, Harrison Smith, Stephen A. Smith, Trey Smith, Gunner Stockton, C.J. Stroud, Patrick Surtain, Nick Suzuki, Jonathan Taylor, Mike Tomlin, Tuli Tuipulotu, Virgil van Dijk, T.J. Watt, Caleb Williams, Caleb Wilson, Lamine Yamal, and Kevin Young.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Jan 22 05:46:56 2026 UTC)
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
The McConkey post includes a fake quote that reads:
"I DON'T CARE IF THE WHOLE WORLD CALLS ME CONTROVERSIAL--FORCING PLAYERS TO WEAR AN LGBT ARMBAND TURNS FOOTBALL INTO A POLITICAL CIRCUS. I PLAY FOR CHARGERS, FOR MY TEAM, AND FOR THE GAME--NOT FOR ANY MOVEMENT."
Lead Stories identified posts that contained nearly identical false claims that 95 sports figures refused to wear an LGBT armband on the field during a game. Armbands supporting LGBT people have been controversial in some cases in recent years, such as during the 2022 World Cup competition (archived here) in Qatar, but a Google search (archived here) for LGBT armband found no documentation that any of them made such statements or that their teams or leagues had demanded they wear armbands. The search did reveal many examples of the fake claims.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshots of Facebook)
The Meta transparency data for the Facebook fan pages promoting the claims showed they were managed from Vietnam.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
The posts include links to articles on websites also published from Vietnam. The terms and conditions page (archived here) for the website that hosts the McConkey article (archived here) acknowledges it is based in Vietnam.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of zenvibe.cafex.biz)
A visit to the homepage (archived here) of that website revealed it published hundreds of fake stories every day, all with major indications they were generated by artificial intelligence tools.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of zenvibe.cafex.biz)
Lead Stories and other fact checking organizations have extensively investigated the Viet Spam operations, and we've published dozens of fact checks targeting these false claims (read them here.) A deeper dive into this can be found in our article Prebunk: Beware Of Fake Fan Pages Spreading False Stories About Your Favorite Celebrities -- How To Spot 'Viet Spam'.
