Fact check: Viral image of Cristiano Ronaldo wearing Imran Khan shirt is old, edited

Multiple social media accounts shared an image on Saturday showing football star Cristiano Ronaldo wearing a T-shirt with a face portrait of PTI founder Imran Khan. However, the original picture is from May 2016 and does not feature Imran’s face.
On August 31, a user on X, who appeared to be pro-PTI based on their past posts, shared a photo of Ronaldo with a white T-shirt featuring Imran’s face, overlaid with the text: “Kaptaan we love you.”
The caption of the post said: “Oh patwaris, what just happened? The person with the most fans in the world turned out to be a fan of our leader, Imran Khan … And the fools are working day and night to prop up that worthless one from Gawalmandi (Nawaz Sharif) and Zardari against him.”
Patwaris are land revenue officials but the term is used as a derogatory slur for PML-N supporters.
The post garnered nearly 70,000 views and was re-shared 1,400 times.
The same image was also shared by other users on X as can be seen here and here, as well as other platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
A fact check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in the football legend and former prime minister.
A reverse image search conducted to investigate the picture led to a post from a fan account of the football star on social media platform X from May 6, 2016, with the caption: “Cristiano Ronaldo is at the Mutua Madrid Open watching the quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Joao Sousa.”
The attached pictures showed Ronaldo wearing the same plain white T-shirt during the match.

A keyword search for “Ronaldo” and “leather bomber jacket” yielded a news report by British tabloid The Daily Mail, originally dated May 6, 2016, titled: “Cristiano Ronaldo takes his mind off of La Liga title race by watching Rafael Nadal beat Joao Sousa in Madrid Open quarter-final”.
The report included the original image of the footballer in a black leather bomber jacket atop a plain white T-shirt which notably did not have any portrait of Imran or anyone else.

Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim regarding Ronaldo wearing a T-shirt in Imran’s support is false. The image is from May 2016 and was edited to include Imran’s portrait on the white T-shirt, while the original image shows it as a plain white T-shirt.
This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ and UNDP.