Fact check: Images of dirty locker room are from March soccer game, not Japan's World Cup match

Ana Faguy, USA TODAY
·2 min read

The claim: Images show Japan's dressing room after World Cup match with Costa Rica

After a Nov. 23 World Cup match between Japan and Germany, FIFA, the host of the World Cup, tweeted to acknowledge Japanese fans who stayed after the match to clean the stadium.

The tweet also mentioned that Japanese players cleaned their locker room after the match and featured a picture of the pristine space.

But a viral social media post claims otherwise.

"Japan's dressing room after Costa Rica match," reads the text of a Nov. 27 Facebook post, which includes pictures of a locker room littered with trash. The post was shared more than 1,000 times.

But the images do not show Japan's locker room. The pictures were taken in Italy's locker room after a match against North Macedonia earlier this year.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.

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Images are from March

The images circulating on social media were taken after the Italian national team lost to North Macedonia in a World Cup qualifying game on March 22.

After that loss, the Italian national team left food waste, plastic bottles and cigarette butts scattered throughout their locker room, according to reporting from Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper.

Multiple news outlets also published stories about the incident and included photos that match those seen in the social media post.

In the photos, wood benches line the sides of the locker room, a large image of soccer players in blue jerseys can be seen in the background and numerous green and red water bottles are littered on the floor.

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Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that images show Japan's dressing room after a World Cup match with Costa Rica. The images are of the Italian soccer team's locker room after a March match with North Macedonia. The images are not from the World Cup and have no connection to the Japanese soccer team.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Images of littered locker room are from earlier this year