Viral photo of Lobi Stars Football Club players at seminar, misleading

Claim: A Twitter page, in an attempt to make a sarcastic comparison, alleged that a photo of some young men is Lobi Stars Football Club players sitting in front of a priest at an open ground during their seminar. 

Verdict: Although the photo was taken at one event held during the club’s seminar, it is a twisted representation of what happened. The alleged image was only a prayer session held as part of the events billed for the occasion. The claim is, therefore, misleading.

Full Text

On Thursday, January 12, 2023, a Twitter page, “Nigerian Football League – Reporter” (@LeaguesReporter), shared collaged pictures of Remo Stars and Lobi Stars football clubs to highlight the stark difference in terms of how the two teams are managed. While the upper photo had Remo stars players in a well-lit room with their jerseys on, the snap portraying Lobi Stars shows players in an open rough-looking environment with people in motley clothes sitting before a priest in a white cloak.

The Twitter account captioned the photo:

“Remo Stars players seminar vs Lobi Stars Football Club of Makurdi players seminar. Many clubs in Nigeria don’t know the power of branding; they run their clubs like  street football cooperatives, SHAME.”

The tweet stirred massive reactions on the social media platform and gathered over 100 retweets and hundreds of likes while writing this fact-check. It became a centre of discussion of everything wrong with Nigeria football clubs as people used Lobi stars as an apt example of how a team should not be run.  

While many threw jabs at the club, a few picked holes in the claim, saying the account misrepresented the team in a bad light with the photo used.

A Twitter user, Osinachi Leonard (@bronze_voice,) wrote: “This ‘branding’ in some Nigeria football teams has to be improved… In secondary school, some people no pay attention to this topic, now they are in charge of big roles and can’t run them properly (sic).”

Another Twitter user, Sowole (@SowoleMoshood1), who called out the photo of Lobi stars as fake, argued: 

“Why should you call this a Seminar? This is the prayer section for Lobi Stars. And Remo Stars own is a seminar. Don’t criticize Lobi Stars. It’s two different scenarios.”

The alleged narrative was also shared on Facebook by a page that belongs to the same @LeaguesReporter (Nigerian Football League). See screenshots below:

Lobi Stars

Lobi Stars Football Club is a Nigerian professional soccer club based in Makurdi, Benue, founded in 1981. The club competes in the Nigerian Professional Football League. The Stars’ home is the 8,000 seater Aper Aku Stadium in Makurdi, Benue state.

Remo Stars

Remo Stars Football Club is a professional football club based in Ikenne, Ogun State, Nigeria, founded in 2010. The club competes in the Nigeria Professional Football League and is known as the Sky Blue Stars.

Nigerian Football has been heavily criticised for poor funding, branding and quality facilities. This alleged tweet, especially coming from a Twitter handle that claims to:

“we specialise in bringing the best out of  Nigerian leagues and projecting it to the world on a positive note” has the potential to further damage the fading image of the Nigerian Soccer league. 

Verification

To check the veracity of the alleged photos about the alleged narrative, DUBAWA conducted a reverse image search of the pictures. The results traced similar photos on the Lobi Stars’ official Facebook page.  A similar photo with a priest and a retinue of people taken from another angle was shared as part of their photo album during a seminar held in January 2023. 

There are so many things in the photos that show they are the same. The date marked out in the footnote of the pictures showed they were taken on the same January 11, 2023. The man sitting before them is on a blue chair. The priest is also in white.

A section of the post, as seen in the screenshot below, mentioned that a reverend father, Emmanuel Asue, prayed for a good outing for the players ahead of the 2023 NPFL season. 

Among the photos also shared was another one showing the players in a class setting (all dressed in their jerseys) with writing materials. It was revealed that they were being taken on “the laws of the game” by a seasoned Nigerian referee, Iyorhe Ephraim Shaagba.

As it appears, the alleged photo used to push the comparative narrative only represented a prayer event organised as one of the activities during the seminar.  Just like Remo Stars, Lobi Stars also had their tactical team meeting in an enclosed hall fairly up to standard.   The comparison is portrayed by an online that claims to share positive news about the Nigerian soccer league. 

Conclusion

Fact-checking such a claim became important as poor management, branding, and corruption have been said to be facing the Nigerian football league. However, shreds of evidence revealed that the photo widely shared on social media platforms as a wholesome representative of Lobi stars’ seminar is misleading as it was just a prayer session held as part of the events billed for the occasion. Hence, the claim is misleading.