Achraf Hakimi: the story behind the incredible fake news about his divorce

A celebrity couple, a footballer and an actress at the heart of it, a romance that turns into a split, with a fortune and assets to fight over in the background: all the ingredients were there for an explosive mix. And unsurprisingly, it caught on. In fact, it caught on far too well. So much so that media outlets such as Goal, Marca, 20 Minutes Suisse and public figures such as Francis Ngannou fell for the fake news about Achraf Hakimi's divorce. Because while the Morocco international and his partner Hiba Abrouk are indeed going through a divorce, the story about the financial demands of the mother of the Paris Saint-Germain player's children is, on the other hand, a transparent fabrication.

Unlikely pages behind the hoax

Yet the story has reached hundreds of millions of people around the world and continues to spread. It started with a post on social media claiming that Hiba Abouk had demanded half of Achraf Hakimi's assets and fortune as part of their divorce proceedings. But, shock: she then supposedly found out that her soon-to-be ex-husband owned nothing in his own name, no property and no money, with everything held in his mother's name. She would therefore supposedly be entitled to nothing from him. That was enough for the internet to go into meltdown over this "news", with the vast majority hailing "Hakimi the visionary" in the face of his soon-to-be ex-wife's greed, supposedly driven purely by the lure of money. It was a theme on which men's rights activists had a field day attacking the actress.

Read more on the same subject: PSG: Achraf Hakimi in the top 10 of Paris salaries

But while the vast majority were taken in by this fake news, which went viral in record time, many internet users were not fooled. For the most curious among them, a few quick searches showed that they were right to be sceptical. Starting with the sources picked up by the media outlets that echoed the story, which made it look "credible" in the eyes of some.

Behind this fake about Hakimi's divorce, there are in fact three social media accounts: First Mag, Daily Loud and News 24/7. The first was presented as a French magazine by the outlets that fell for it, but it is in fact a page active mainly on Facebook and Twitter and based in Côte d'Ivoire. The second, which specialises in music and particularly hip-hop, is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The last one keeps shifting its location: one moment Uganda, another Greece, among others, according to what was found by Sport News Africa after monitoring it over several days.

Twitter Blue, the downside of the blue tick

Côte d'Ivoire, Pennsylvania, Uganda and Greece are places far, very far, from Spain, Morocco and Tunisia, where Achraf Hakimi and Hiba Abrouk have their origins, or from France, where the Parisian lives. All of this set alarm bells ringing, especially as the three pages could not provide any more information and did not say whether the story came from them or from another source. It is worth noting that all three accounts are verified on Twitter, where the fake news started. The episode once again highlights the many criticisms of the new verification system, Twitter Blue, introduced since Elon Musk's takeover of the social network. After a quick check, all three accounts had taken out a paid subscription to get their verification and so were not verified under the old version of the platform. The little blue tick therefore did its job in this affair.

As proof of how viral this hoax went: with just one post each, the three accounts reached a combined 100 million people on Twitter alone. Add to that what happened on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and messaging services such as WhatsApp, where the fake news about Achraf Hakimi's divorce circulated widely, and you get a sense of how far it spread. And while many people have since tried to point out that Hiba Abrouk's supposed demand was false, the damage is done, as a rumour always travels much further than its denial.

Impossible even in legal terms

The most determined went even further to put an end to the debate once and for all and dismantle the argument that Hakimi could have handed his fortune to his mother. They did so by relying on a few rules of European law, starting with French law, which directly concerns the Morocco international. As an employee of Paris Saint-Germain, he receives his salary and other bonuses in France and must therefore have a bank account in his own name, as French law requires. He can, however, add his mother's name or someone else's as a joint holder of the account, but his name will always appear on it and he will therefore be listed as the owner. That, in effect, undermines the claim that his entire fortune is in his mother's name and that he has planned everything so he has nothing to declare.

Given how viral this hoax went, it is hard to imagine it has not reached those involved. While Hakimi has chosen not to say any more, Hiba Abrouk responded in her own way on social media, posting on Instagram a photo of her two sons with the Paris full-back, with the caption: "What is truly important. My children." Is that enough to (finally) end the debate?