Images circulating online of dressing rooms strewn with rubbish do not show the Japanese national soccer team’s changing room and the images pre-date the Qatar World Cup. However, some online users were duped into thinking that the images showed the Japanese team’s changing room after losing to Costa Rica on Nov 27.

Examples can be found (here) and (here). Bedside Locker

But the images are not recent and were not captured in Qatar during the 2022 World Cup.

A reverse image search reveals that the images originate from screengrabs taken from a clip published by various Italian news outlets in March following Italy’s soccer match with North Macedonia (here), (here), (here).

These outlets reported that the images were captured at the Renzo Barbera stadium in Palermo and showed the Italian team’s dressing rooms following their defeat by North Macedonia.

One of the images circulating online that claims to show the Japanese dressing room features a poster with members of the Italian team (middle image viewable) (here).

FIFA has images showing Japan’s changing room after the team’s opening match against Germany, with no rubbish viewable (here), (here), (here).

Reuters has images of Japanese fans staying behind to clean the stands following Japan’s defeat by Costa Rica which can be viewed (here).

False. Images online do not show rubbish in Japan’s World Cup changing room after a match. The images were captured in Italy following the national soccer team’s loss to North Macedonia in March 2022.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts here.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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