Did the fireworks at the World Cup finals have blue smoke, suggesting that the game had been rigged for Argentina, but Spain upset those plans? No, that's not true: The fireworks smoke was white during the closing ceremony. The footage in question is real, but it has been re-recorded and altered to change the color of the smoke from white to blue to reference the Argentine flag. The original footage shows white smoke illuminated by the evening sun and the flag of the World Cup champions, Spain, on the field.
The altered footage appears in a post (archived here) published by the X account @_Zaraquin on July 20, 2026. It was captioned:
If FIFA world cup final was not rigged, why were the fireworks colors of Argentina? Their plans were ruined by Spain.
This is a screenshot from the post:
(Image source: @_Zaraquin post on X.)
The unsteady 21-second video clip appears to have been filmed with a handheld camera pointing at a TV screen. In the upper right corner a 'Fox+' logo appears alongside the word 'vivo' (Spanish for 'live'). The clip appears to have been filmed from a live broadcast or a recording of a live broadcast from the subscription streaming platform Fox One (archived here). The colors shown in this re-recorded footage do not accurately depict the colors of the original footage.
Lead Stories identified another copy of this aerial footage showing the fireworks over the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This was broadcast by Deutsche Telekom's TV platform MagentaTV (archived here) and remains available for download. The Google translation of the German caption with the video says:
Fireworks over MetLife Stadium following the trophy presentation at the 2026 World Cup final (Screenshot: MagentaTV)
The same footage was presented by the two networks with slightly different cropping. Because of differences in network cropping and the handheld framing of the altered clip, less of the area surrounding the stadium is visible in the blue-tinted version, but this does not affect the color of the smoke. Lead Stories took two screenshots (pictured below) to compare the colors shown in the two clips. Lead Stories referenced the traffic moving on the roads outside of the stadium, the image on the jumbotron screen, and the specific zig-zag of several smoke trails crossing the Spanish flag, to ensure the moment pictured in the screenshots was synced. The smoke of the fireworks at this time, and throughout the MagentaTV clip, was white.
(Image source: MagentaTV download and @_Zaraquin post on X.)
