Portugal arrived among the favourites to win the World Cup.
But on 17 June, the day they opened against DR Congo, the investigative magazine Josimar published a fifty-second video that appeared to show Bruno Fernandes signing as a brand ambassador for QH88, an illegal Vietnamese gambling operator.
None of it had happened.
A frame-by-frame analysis commissioned by Josimar found that the clip was an AI-generated deepfake. Fernandes had agreed to nothing.
The video used the captain of Manchester United to lead punters most to a banned betting site.
It was the most polished example of a world of online disinformation that has dogged Portugal.
During the World Cup, after Cristiano Ronaldo put in a poor performance against DR Congo, a forged screenshot showed a demand from João Neves’ partner, the actress Madalena Aragão, that Ronaldo should retire. It was convincing enough to draw a public reply from Ronaldo’s fiancée before it was dismissed.
An ambiguous quote from Neves about Ronaldo was rewritten online into a dressing-room mutiny the players spent days denying.
