WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Collingwood AFL star Nick Daicos has spent $2 million on a Melbourne homeless shelter.
OUR VERDICT
False. The claim and associated images are fake.
AAP FACTCHECK - Collingwood star Nick Daicos has not spent $2 million building a homeless shelter in his hometown, despite claims on social media.
It is just one of numerous falsehoods published by Facebook pages called Magpie Drama Hub and Magpie Nation Hub.
The supposed AFL club fan pages are actually operated from Vietnam, Bangladesh and Afghanistan according to Facebook's transparency details, and are pushing out disinformation on a daily basis.
They are among several pages identified by AAP FactCheck that target supporters of various AFL and NRL clubs with fabricated stories and AI-generated images.
Their posts urge readers to click on a link to an ad-laden website where there are further false claims.
A post on Magpie Drama Hub claims Daicos donated $2 million to build a state-of-the-art homeless shelter with 150 apartments and 300 beds.
This is false. There is no credible evidence of this, and two photos supposedly showing the Melbourne facility are actually decade-old images of homeless shelters in Utah in the US and British Columbia in Canada.
Another post claims Daicos "suddenly collapsed in the locker room" due to a serious yet undisclosed illness.
This is also false. In the bottom right corner of the accompanying image is the Google Gemini logo, which indicates it was generated using the company's AI.
Both pages have also posted supposed images of players and staff meeting children suffering from brain tumours.
One post suggests star player Josh Daicos met a seven-year-old cancer patient in hospital, meanwhile another post claims club coach Craig McRae met with an eight-year-old.
A third post alleges a group of players met a young boy with brain cancer on the sidelines after a match.
However, all of these claims are false. When uploaded to Google Images, the "About this Image" feature identifies them as "Made with Google AI" as they contain a hidden Synth ID watermark.
Another post appears to show player Scott Pendlebury visiting his grandfather in hospital, however the Google Gemini logo is faintly visible in the corner.
This indicates the image was made using Google's AI.
Pendlebury is pictured in a guernsey featuring a patch with the words "Grand Oval 2025".
It appears to be an AI hallucination of the patch featured on grand final guernseys. Collingwood was not in the 2025 grand final.
Another post claims Collingwood coach McRae accused officials of bias at a press conference.
However, this claim is false. There is no reporting of any such comments.
Additionally, the supposed quotes appear associated with various other sporting coaches and players on similar-looking disinformation Facebook pages operated from Vietnam.
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