Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe is at the centre of a controversy in China for his comments on late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, which have not only cost him several commercial deals but have also led to state television scrapping La Liga broadcasts. The backlash highlighted the risks for athletes and brands in the lucrative Chinese market, where satire about Mao, modern China’s founding leader who ruled the country from 1949 until his death in 1976, remains a social taboo. Once hailed as a footballing sensation, Mbappe was widely adored in China until the controversy caused outrage among the country’s 1.4 billion people.
Despite issuing an apology, the French superstar struggled to dissipate anger on Chinese social media on Wednesday. Al Jazeera breaks down the row between Mbappe and China: A video circulated online showed France’s 2018 World Cup winner Mbappe apparently joking about a former Chinese leader. While Mbappe did not name Mao in the video, he appeared to say the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face digitally altered onto that of “some guy – I think he’s a Chinese dictator”.
The video, which shows Mbappe preparing to go on air, was purportedly filmed in April, as verified by Al Jazeera. The clip was shared by French football podcast The Bridge and widely circulated on social media on Monday. It has since been taken down.
Fans have previously created memes superimposing Mbappe’s face on images of military and political leaders to suggest that he has the power to influence decisions at the teams he plays for. Mbappe, who has been nicknamed “the dictator” in the European press, said last month that he acknowledged the humour, but did not like being compared with figures associated with tragedies. You can tell that, for some people, it’s all in good fun.
But there is another part that’s a bit less funny because of the damage such people have caused throughout history,” he said in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe. The “dictator Mbappe” memes began as caricatures of his influence at Paris Saint-Germain, not statements of political allegiance. By apparently laughing at an image depicting him as Mao, however, the France captain entered territory in which self-mockery could be perceived as an insult to a country’s founding leader.
Mbappe’s original joke was not reposted – or had been scrubbed – from China’s tightly controlled social media, with state media omitting any references to Mao, saying instead that the footballer had made “inappropriate remarks concerning China”. But Mbappe has faced a torrent of criticism from China. Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu had meanwhile frozen Mbappe’s account, where he has at least a million followers, preventing him from gaining any new ones.
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