Real Madrid apologised to China on Wednesday after star striker Kylian Mbappe apparently joked about Mao Zedong in comments that sparked a social media storm and saw Spanish football yanked off state TV.
Mocking former leader Mao — blamed by historians for millions of deaths — is taboo in China, and Mbappe’s remarks saw him become the latest foreign sports figure to anger Beijing.
In a clip of a video interview with French show “The Bridge” — since taken down — Mbappe talked about being amused by an internet meme of his face photoshopped onto “some guy, think he’s a Chinese dictator”, an apparent reference to Mao.
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Real Madrid “wishes to express its apologies to the Chinese people for any offence caused by the recent remarks of our player Kylian Mbappe”, the club said in a statement.
“The club joins in the public apology issued by Kylian Mbappe, in which the player himself expressed his regret for his words and reiterated his respect for the Chinese people,” the 15-time European champions said.
The statement came a day after Mbappe issued his own apology, saying: “My comment was ill-judged and I now understand that it hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular briefing on Wednesday: “We take seriously the apology the individual concerned has made.”
La Liga, which saw the broadcast of its matches suspended in China, said Tuesday it “deeply regrets the offence that Kylian Mbappe’s recent comments have caused among Chinese fans”.
Earlier, the state-run Global Times said in an editorial that it was “not difficult to see that the club’s longstanding tolerance of such behaviour has contributed to Mbappe’s latest offensive remarks”.
Chinese beverage giant Dongpeng, which during this year’s World Cup ran adverts with AI-generated images of Mbappe, said Tuesday it had scrapped its partnership with the player, as did dairy firms Mengniu and Milkground.
According to Sports Illustrated, Mbappe could be set to lose as much as $42.7 million AUD in yearly sponsorship revenue, with brands continuously cutting ties with the French star.
CMG, which oversees public broadcaster CCTV, said it had decided to suspend broadcasts of La Liga, the world’s second-richestfootball league after England’s Premier League.
Mbappe, 27, continued to face a torrent of criticism from Chinese web users on Wednesday, some of it racist.
“His remarks were hurtful toward China and the Chinese people, so they cannot be translated,” wrote one user on social mediaplatform Weibo.
Mbappe’s original joke about Mao was not reported — or had been scrubbed — from China’s tightly controlled social media.
Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu had meanwhile frozen Mbappe’s account, where he has over a million followers.
The same was done on the Weibo app, with a notice stating that “the user has been banned from following due to violating lawsor the Weibo Community Convention”.
Some Chinese media reports said global brands like Dior and Hublot had removed their Mbappe-related content on Weibo.
An AFP search on Dior and Hublot’s Weibo page with Mbappe’s Chinese name produced no results.
Offline too the Mbappe brand appeared to be under threat.
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When AFP visited the Adidas flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun shopping district, Real Madrid shirts were available for sale, but none bearing the striker’s name.
Chinese state media have previously praised Mbappe as a “footballing sensation” and “talent”.
His face is plastered on billboards, on soft drinks and across social media. Mbappe is sometimes affectionately referred to as “Guigui”, meaning “turtle” in Chinese, for his resemblance to a character from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie.
But it could take a significant period for the damage to Mbappe and La Liga’s reputation in China to be repaired.
“Viewed from a calm, objective and emotion-free standpoint, this is clearly a very damaging incident,” Yan Qiang, a veteran sports commentator, told AFP.
“It causes serious damage to the image of La Liga and Real Madrid in China.
“In the age of the mobile internet things blow-up on social media quickly and emotions run high.
“An apology does not necessarily mean the end of the story.
“It’s better to have an apology than no apology at all, but it’s definitely not the end of the story.”
The Mbappe furore and fallout is not an unfamiliar tale.
Various overseas sports leagues or players have found themselves in hot water for comments on topics that are politically sensitive to China.
China effectively cut ties with the NBA in 2019 after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters.
NBA executives said Morey had the right to freedom of expression. In contrast, La Liga immediately distanced itself from what Mbappe said.
The NBA, which along with football is the most popular sport in China, was wiped from CCTV for more than a year.
NBA pre-season matches only returned to China last year.
Australian National University lecturer Debby Chan called the NBA case — and now Mbappe — an illustration of China’s consumer nationalism, where online sentiment and state media converge into “a spiral of outrage”.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the split.
Spanish football also has a lot to lose.
A source within La Liga told AFP that China and the United States alone finance the “majority” of international broadcasting rights, which were valued at 748 million euros ($1.19 billion AUD) for the 2024-25 season.
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According to the Real Madrid-affiliated newspaper Marca, the Madrid club generates between 10 and 15 per cent of its sales of jerseys and merchandise in China.
Real Madrid also counts Chinese companies among its main sponsors, with Hisense, sports betting firm Kaiyun Sports, and Linglong Tire all featuring prominently.
Adam Zhang, founder of the Beijing-based Key-Solution Sports Consulting, said showing fast and heartfelt remorse was the first step.
“This will influence the decision on whether to continue the broadcast ban and, if so, for how long,” he told AFP.
Sports commentator Yan cast doubt on whether the reputation of Mbappe, whose face has adorned drinks bottles and advertisingcampaigns in China, can ever fully recover.
“Judging by commercial sponsorships and big ad campaigns he appeared in during the World Cup, he has a huge influence in China,” he said.
“If that influence can’t be sustained there can be no talk of commercial interests, and La Liga and Real Madrid will definitelybe badly affected.” Yan said it was “genuinely hard to predict” what happens next. “In the short term, I’m certainly not optimistic,” he added. “If they want to repair their image and the relationship, their future actions and behaviour will be key.”
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