Did American soccer player Folarin Balogun unveil an image of late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk under his t-shirt during the USA-Paraguay World Cup match on June 12, 2026? No, that's not true: The viral image was digitally manipulated. Neither the real footage of the game nor media coverage confirm that such an episode ever took place during that match.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @xakundo on June 13, 2026. It opened:
'THIS IS FOR CHARLIE KIRK.' El insólito festejo de Folarin Balogun. 😳🇺🇸
As translated from Spanish to English by DeepL, it meant:
'THIS IS FOR CHARLIE KIRK'. Folarin Balogun's unusual celebration. 😳🇺🇸
This is what the attached image looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @xakundo on X.)
The picture showed the logos of the two teams: USA and Paraguay. They met for a World Cup game on June 12, 2026 (archived here and here), and the USA won 4-1.
Balogun, who is a forward for AS Monaco and who also plays for the American national team, scored (archived here and here) two of those goals, the second and the third. However, contrary to the 46:00 mark in the viral image, the third goal was only scored three minutes later, at the 49:08 mark.
A FOX Sports video (archived here) published on YouTube captures moments after both Balogun's goals, but it does not show the player unveiling a Charlie Kirk shirt.
A search on Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not show any media coverage of the supposedly real story Kirk shirt at the World Cup.
Kirk, the conservative commentator referenced in the viral post, was fatally shot on September 10, 2025 (archived here).
AI or Not suggested the presence of generative AI in the picture:
(Image source: AI or Not.)
ZeroGPT also concluded that the image was not authentic:
(Image source: ZeroGPT.)
