Videos claiming that Erling Haaland, the Manchester City and Norwegian national team striker widely regarded as one of the best footballers in the world, has converted to Islam have been circulating on TikTok, Instagram Reels, and X for several weeks. The videos show a figure that looks and sounds like Haaland reciting the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith, and in some cases being welcomed into a mosque.
They have accumulated millions of views and generated thousands of comments from users who believe them. Africentra investigated the claim from the ground up. Not a single element of it is verifiable. The videos are not real.
While there has been mixed reactions from Christains and Muslim over the viral videos, I am glad to annouce that Erling Haaland has not converted to Islam. At least not yet if I am permitted to say that. No credible news outlet, including BBC, Sky Sports, ESPN, Al Jazeera, Reuters, or AP, has reported any such conversion.
Haaland’s own team, Manchester City, has issued no statement about a change of faith. Haaland himself has made no public announcement on any platform. The circulating videos have been identified by multiple sources, including Grok’s X fact-check system, Indonesian investigative journalists, and TikTok creators themselves, as AI-generated or manipulated content.
Several of the videos were self-labelled by their own creators as fictional or for entertainment. Others were flagged by viewers for visible lip-sync failures and visual quality inconsistencies typical of AI-generated deepfakes.
The videos take several forms. Some show a figure resembling Haaland in what appears to be a mosque setting, repeating phrases in Arabic. Others are constructed as news-style clips with graphics suggesting a major announcement. A third category consists of AI-generated images presented as if they were photographs from a real event. In every case, the evidence of fabrication is present for anyone who looks carefully.
Indonesian fact-checkers who investigated the circulating Shahada video noted visible lip-sync irregularities, meaning the mouth movements do not consistently match the audio, and described the overall visual quality as inconsistent with authentic footage. This is a known signature of AI video generation tools.
On TikTok, multiple creators who posted versions of the video openly labelled them in their captions as fictional or for entertainment, including one account that posted “Part 2 (this video is not real just for fun).” The disclaimer did not prevent the video from being shared widely as genuine by other accounts that removed the original context.
Grok, the X platform’s AI fact-checking system, directly addressed the claim when users asked about it, stating: this is a manipulated or AI-generated video circulating on social media, Haaland has not converted to Islam or said the Shahada, and zero credible news outlets have reported it.
Haaland has kept his personal religious beliefs almost entirely private throughout his career. What is publicly known is limited to the following confirmed facts. He was born in Leeds, England, in 2000 to Norwegian parents and grew up in Bryne, Norway, a country where approximately 70% of the population are baptised members of the Lutheran Church of Norway. His family background is Christian. He has been photographed attending church on several occasions. In a 2019 interview, he stated: “I believe in God and I pray to him every day.” He did not specify a religion in that statement.
Ibelieve in God and I pray to him every day.
Erling Haaland, interview, 2019. Verified via multiple football media sources.
The origin of the Muslim association with Haaland on social media predates the current deepfake videos by several years. During his time at Borussia Dortmund, Haaland posted the Arabic phrase “Alhamdulillah” under a tweet involving his Muslim teammate Mahmoud Dahoud. On his birthday in 2022, he replied “Inshallah” to a fan message. Both phrases are common expressions of Arabic origin used frequently by non-Muslims, particularly those who work closely with Muslim teammates. Football analysts and multiple sports journalists have noted at the time that these posts did not indicate a religious affiliation and were more likely expressions of cultural familiarity with Muslim colleagues including Riyad Mahrez and Dahoud.
he Haaland conversion rumour is part of a documented pattern on social media where AI-generated videos depicting celebrities, athletes, and public figures converting to Islam are produced and shared to generate engagement. Similar videos have targeted Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and several Premier League footballers. The videos exploit genuine public curiosity about a celebrity’s faith, and the algorithm rewards shocking or emotionally resonant content regardless of its accuracy.
None of these conversions has been real. None has been confirmed by the individuals depicted. The videos are produced using commercially available AI video generation tools and spread because platforms do not consistently apply labels that identify synthetic media before it reaches large audiences.
Publishing or sharing AI-generated videos of a real person declaring a religious conversion they have not made is not a harmless act. It misrepresents an individual’s faith, a deeply personal matter, without their consent. It spreads false information at scale. And it uses one of the world’s most recognisable athletes as a vehicle for content that the creators know is fictional, without consistently labelling it as such.
Haaland has not commented publicly on the videos. Manchester City have not commented publicly on the videos. His management has not commented. The absence of a denial from his camp does not constitute confirmation, and it should not be reported as though it does. The burden of proof for a claim of religious conversion rests with those making the claim. No such proof exists.
The videos are fake. The claim is false. Erling Haaland has not converted to Islam. Any outlet or account reporting otherwise is spreading misinformation about a living person.
