Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe has apologised for what he described as an \u201cill-judged\u201d comment about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong after two major Chinese brands terminated their partnerships with the French football star.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy comment was ill-judged, and I now understand that it hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world. I apologise to everyone my words have upset,\u201d Mbappe said in a statement on his X handle on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n
The controversy followed the circulation of a video in which the 27-year-old France captain described an internet meme featuring his face superimposed on that of a Chinese leader as the funniest meme he had seen.\n<\/p>\n
Mbappe appeared to refer to the figure as \u201csome guy \u2014 I think he\u2019s a Chinese dictator,\u201d in an apparent reference to Mao, who led the Chinese Communist Party and died in 1976.<\/p>\n
Chinese drinks manufacturer Dongpeng Beverage announced on Tuesday that it was ending its partnership with the footballer, citing its opposition to remarks considered offensive to national sentiments.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur company firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments,\u201d the company said, adding, \u201cWith immediate effect, we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Mengniu, China\u2019s largest dairy producer, also announced that it was ending its partnership with the Real Madrid forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith immediate effect, our company is terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe,\u201d the company said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMengniu firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
The announcements triggered widespread discussion on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where the termination of Dongpeng\u2019s partnership with Mbappe became a trending topic.\n<\/p>\n
Jokes about Mao, widely regarded in China as the country\u2019s founding leader, remain sensitive, with public comments perceived as disrespectful often attracting strong reactions.\n<\/p>\n
Mbappe had previously spoken about memes comparing him to historical dictators in an interview with French sports newspaper L\u2019Equipe in September.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a part of it that\u2019s funny. You can tell that, for some people, it\u2019s all in good fun. But there is another part that\u2019s a bit less funny because of the damage such people have caused throughout history,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing compared to individuals who murder others, or who have brought misery to millions upon millions of people \u2014 well, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever done anything like that in my life,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
International sports figures have previously faced backlash in China over comments on politically sensitive issues, including Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.\n<\/p>\n
In 2019, a social media post by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong prompted China to suspend NBA sponsorship deals and stop broadcasting games for a year.\n<\/p>\n
In 2023, former NBA player Dwight Howard also attracted criticism on Chinese social media after referring to Taiwan as a country in a video featuring Taiwan\u2019s then vice president, Lai Ching-te.\n <\/p>\n
Source: <\/p>\n
Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappe has apologised for what he described as an \u201cill-judged\u201d comment about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong after two major Chinese brands terminated their partnerships with… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}