Sadio Mané's international retirement with Senegal was an AI-generated hoax

An international retirement announcement attributed to Sadio Mané, widely circulated Friday on social media and picked up by several media outlets, turned out to be false information generated by artificial intelligence.

The article at the origin of the rumor was published by Le Quotidien. It claimed that Senegal’s all-time leading international goalscorer had officially announced the end of his international career in a statement, the day after the Lions of Teranga’s elimination by Belgium in the Round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup. The news spread rapidly before being debunked early afternoon by journalist Malang Sané of Sport News Africa. “The information circulating that Sadio Mané announced in a statement that he would end his international career is FALSE. Neither Sadio nor his immediate circle are behind this statement,” he wrote.

Mané has therefore, at this stage, made no official statement about his international future since the elimination by Belgium. The only known public position dates back to the Africa Cup of Nations: after the controversial final between Senegal and Morocco in January 2026, the striker indicated that this tournament would be his last Africa Cup of Nations. A statement that was not an announcement of international retirement, and which remains to this day the only verifiable reference on the subject.