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Claim: A Facebook user claimed that the Sierra Leone national stadium has been fully renovated, reopened, and is ready for use.
Verdict: Misleading. The Executive Director of the National Sports Authority, Mohamed Alphaka Conteh Esq., told DUBAWA the national stadium is still under renovation.
Full Text
A Facebook blog, Salone Political Watch, claimed that Sierra Leone’s national stadium, officially known as the Siaka Stevens National Stadium, is fully renovated and operating at normal capacity.
The post (archived here) attracted over 4,000 reactions, 194 comments and 102 shares. A similar claim was made by a Facebook page, Born to Blog, last year, which DUBAWA verified as untrue.
This new claim includes a video and has a higher potential to mislead. DUBAWA therefore decided to verify it.
Verification
DUBAWA reviewed recent reports on the rehabilitation of the Siaka Stevens National Stadium and found that the renovation work is not yet complete.
To verify the claim, DUBAWA contacted the Executive Director of the National Sports Authority, Mohamed Alphaka Conteh Esq. He said the national stadium is still under renovation.
Image showing the stadium’s current status.
DUBAWA also contacted David Turner Esq., a member of the media and marketing team at the Sierra Leone Football Association, to verify the claim. He said that the finished stadium in the video the Facebook user shared is not Sierra Leone’s national stadium.
The country’s main stadium, the Siaka Stevens Stadium in Freetown, is currently under renovation and has not been completed, contrary to the viral post.
Image of Siaka Stevens National Stadium
We also used INVID’s keyframe analysis feature, a video verification tool, to analyse the clip. The result showed that the video was from the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, built for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
Conclusion
The Facebook claim that Sierra Leone’s national stadium has been completed and reopened is misleading. The Executive Director of the National Sports Authority, Mohamed Alphaka Conteh Esq., has dismissed the claim.