Claim: England captain Harry Kane has reacted to a curse placed on him by Ghanaian witchdoctor
Source: Social media (TikTok)
Verdict: AI-generated content
Researched by Alfa Shaban
On June 23, 2026, Ghana and England played out a goalless draw at the 2026 World Cup helping both teams maintain their unbeaten start to the tournament in the keenly-watched Group L that has Croatia and Panama as other teams.
England defeated Croatia 4 – 2 in their first game while Ghana beat Panama 1 – 0. While the two sides are tied at four points apiece, England is top of the group due to goals scored while Croatia has three points after beating Panama in Match Day 2 fixture.
A topical off-field issue before and after the Ghana vs England game was about a Ghanaian witchdoctor’s claim that he had placed a curse on Harry Kane, the England forward who is captain of the Three Lions. Kane had scored twice in the England victory against Croatia.
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Nana Kwaku Bonsam was widely reported in the foreign and local media to have said Kane will be fit for the game but won’t score. After the game ended goalless with Kane largely marked out, Kwaku Bonsam announced that he had lifted the curse.
A viral video circulating after the game suggests that Harry Kane in a post-match interview directly addressed the issue of the curse. A post on TikTok captured Kane speaking about getting to know of the curse before the game and its possible impact on his performance. It has grossed over half a million views in a day, with 34.6K likes, 983 comments, 3074 bookmarks and 5115 shares.
This report will fact-check whether indeed the Bayern Munich forward has at any point spoken about Kwaku Bonsam’s curse.
Fact-check
GhanaFact reviewed post match reactions by the England team, including an article on Kane’s reactions by the England national team and his full interview with ITV after the game at the Boston Stadium, Foxborough.
No where in the story about Kane’s reaction was he asked about nor did he react to the alleged curse by Kwaku Bonsam.
We also took inventory of the England National Team’s YouTube page and there was no sit-down interview of Harry Kane on the Ghana game. Additionally Kane is spotted wearing the red off-field jersey in the viral video yet the England team has not used that particular outfit at the World Cup, giving an indication the video is likely manipulated.
We passed the video through Google Gemini platform. It confirmed that the audio was AI-generated. “Based on a digital forensic analysis of the visual and acoustic components, the audio in this video is indeed AI-generated,” Google Gemini concluded.
It added that the “audio is verified as a sophisticated voice clone rather than a genuine recording,” citing Acoustic Artifacts and Pitch Fluctuations, Unnatural Speech Cadence and Robotic Text-to-Speech (TTS) Inflexion.
It also pointed to Audio-to-Visual Mismatch (Lip Sync Issues) and Out-of-Sync Phrasing. “The visual of Kane speaking is taken from a completely different, unrelated interview context. The creator of the video clipped short 2-to-3 second loops of Kane moving his mouth, repeating them over a fabricated script to create the illusion of a continuous monologue.
“This video is a classic example of a “Deepfake” or AI voice-clone parody created for social media entertainment,” Gemini added.
Verdict:
The claim that Harry Kane reacted to Kwaku Bonsam’s curse is False, the video is a deepfake.
Ahead of the final group games (June 27, 2026), this is how the Group L table looks like.
Full text of what Harry Kane reportedly said in the viral clip
A Ghanaian witch doctor cursed me before our World Cup match, and honestly, after what happened, I don’t even know how to explain it. Before that game, I was in great form. I started the World Cup on fire, two goals in the opening match.
Everything felt easy. I felt sharp, confident, unstoppable, then I saw something online before the Ghana game. A witch doctor in Ghana publicly said, Harry Kane won’t get injured, but he won’t score against Ghana. I laughed it off. Come on, I’m a professional striker. I don’t believe in that stuff.
But then we played the match, it stayed tight, 0-0, and in the eighty-fifth minute I got the perfect chance. No defender near me, open space. Exactly the kind of moment I usually score blindfolded. But somehow I blasted it over the bar.
Instantly I knew something fell off. I couldn’t believe I missed and for a second I actually felt dizzy. Even the goal looked strange, almost bigger than usual. Now listen, am I saying the curse was real? Not exactly, but after missing a chance like that, I understand why people are talking about it. So, tell me, was it just a bad miss or did that witch doctor get inside my head?
