French football star Kylian Mbappe has been dropped by two major brands in China after a video circulated online in which he apparently joked about former leader Mao Zedong, Dawn reported, citing AFP.
What the companies said
In China, jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are seen as disrespectful and remain a social taboo. The drinks company Dongpeng said it “firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments”, adding that “with immediate effect we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe”. Mengniu, China’s largest dairy producer, also cut ties. “Mengniu firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” it said.
Advertisements showing AI-generated images of the 27-year-old France captain drinking a Dongpeng sports drink were regularly shown in China during this year’s World Cup. Until this incident Mbappe, who plays for Real Madrid, was hugely popular with Chinese fans and had millions of followers on social media. He is fondly nicknamed “Guigui”, the Chinese word for “Turtle”, because of his popularity as a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meme.
The video
The announcements followed the appearance online of a video in which Mbappe said the funniest internet meme he had seen was one of his face photo-shopped onto that of “some guy, I think he’s a Chinese dictator”. This was an apparent reference to a meme that superimposes his face on an image of Mao, one of several that use his face with historical figures. AFP Fact Check could not immediately verify that the video is authentic.
“Dongpeng Beverage ends cooperation with Mbappe” was the top-trending topic on the Chinese social media site Weibo. One user wrote that the “extremely serious wrong remarks… crossed the red line”. Others called on Dongpeng to remove Mbappe’s image from its energy drink bottles. One of China’s biggest online football outlets, Dongqiudi, said in a statement on Monday evening that his remarks were “offensive to China and the Chinese people” and had hurt the feelings of Chinese football fans.
An earlier meme
In September, Mbappe had spoken about a previous meme that showed him as a military dictator, in an interview with the French sports newspaper L’Equipe. “There’s a part of it that’s funny,” he said. “But there is another part that’s a bit less funny because of the damage such people have caused throughout history. Being compared to individuals who murder others, or who have brought misery to millions upon millions of people, well, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that in my life.”
Not the first star to face this
The row came a day after Mbappe lost out to Harry Kane for the Ballon d’Or, football’s most prestigious individual award. AFP noted that global sports stars who comment on sensitive topics such as Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong have been dropped by sponsors in China before. Former NBA player Dwight Howard drew anger in 2023 when he referred to Taiwan as a country in a video with the island’s vice-president, who is now president, Lai Ching-te. In 2019, a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting the Hong Kong protests led China to suspend sponsorship deals with the NBA and take games off Chinese television for a year. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under control.
What we know and what we don’t
What we know: the two companies’ statements, the online reaction and the fact that AFP has not verified the video.
What we don’t know: whether the clip is genuine or edited, whether Mbappe or his representatives will respond, and whether other sponsors will follow. Neither Real Madrid nor Mbappe had commented in the reports we drew on.
Why it matters
The episode shows how much commercial value top players have in China and how quickly it can disappear when a remark touches a sensitive subject. For Mbappe, the loss of two big sponsors, with millions of Chinese followers, is a financial and reputational blow just as he has lost the Ballon d’Or race. For sponsors and clubs around the world, it is a reminder that a clip taken out of context can set off a fast reaction in a market where national sentiment runs high. What to watch next: any statement from Mbappe, and whether other brands in China review their deals.
This article draws on reporting by Dawn and AFP.
Comments
Comments are reviewed by our editors before they appear. Please keep them civil and on topic. See our terms.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your view.