Fake ‘Sky Stadium’ Video Tricks Social Media Users

AFP/APP

Paris: An AI-generated video claiming to show one of the football stadiums for the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia went viral on social media this week—but it has no connection to the kingdom’s official plans.

The video, featuring a glowing arena perched atop a towering skyscraper, was widely shared by thousands of accounts, leading millions of users to believe it was an official Saudi design.

While Riyadh has announced plans to construct a football arena as part of The Line—a futuristic megacity project—the official designs look nothing like the viral clip.

“This design is completely fake and bears no resemblance to anything Saudi Arabia is planning. It appears in no official sources,” a source close to the matter told AFP.

Several French media outlets that initially presented the video as an official Saudi project have since retracted or updated their reports.

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AFP’s digital investigation team traced the clip to the Instagram account @hyporaultraworks, known for posting AI-generated futuristic stadium concepts. The video’s caption described it as “an aerial flyby of a skyscraper stadium design.”

The creator confirmed to AFP that they were behind the viral post.

“What started as a simple AI concept has taken on a life of its own—over 50 million views later, our ‘Sky Stadium’ design has gone global (and slightly off the rails),” the user wrote on Facebook.

They added that the clip had “no link to any Saudi project” and was “purely an imaginative AI concept exploring what a vertical, skyscraper-style football stadium could look like.”

Saudi Arabia is currently investing heavily in infrastructure as it prepares to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup—the first in the kingdom’s history.