Does a viral image prove that Argentina-England referee Ismail Elfath "asked for a photo" with Argentina's captain Lionel Messi? No, that's not true: The photo was cropped to remove the captain of the opposing team, who was posing with Messi and the referees for a standard pre-match shot. The image was produced in 2022, before a different match played by Argentina and France.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published by @TheFootyFeed on July 14, 2026. It opened:
So only one referee at this World Cup has asked for a photo with Lionel Messi at the end of a game, And that referee is the one that the FIFA chose to appoint for a World Cup semifinal... You could not make this shit up 🤦♂️
This is what the image attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @TheFootyFeed on X.)
Paired with the caption, the image could be misread as evidence that Argentina-England referee Ismail Elfath -- standing to Messi's left -- was actually "asking for a photo" with him during a Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup game.
In 2026, when the post reviewed in this fact check was published, Elfath was selected to officiate (archived here) the FIFA World Cup Argentina-England match (archived here) on July 15, 2026. However, the image did not show what the viral post claimed it did. The photo predated the game by roughly four years and was digitally cropped to remove additional context.
The full-size photo (archived here) could be found on Getty Images where it was published under the title:
Argentina v France: Final - FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The description of the image continued:
LUSAIL CITY, QATAR - DECEMBER 18: referees and team captains from L-R: Tomasz Listkiewicz, Lionel Messi, Ismail Elfath, Szymon Marciniak, Hugo Lloris, Pawe Sokolnicki [sic] before the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Final match between Argentina and France at Lusail Stadium on December 18, 2022 in Lusail City, Qatar.
A search across the same stock image database for similar pictures featuring captains of two competing teams with soccer officials showed that such pre-game photos are a standard part of documenting matches, as seen, for example, here (archived here) and here (archived here).
