Chinese Brands End Mbappe Deals After Unverified Mao Meme Video

Chinese brands Dongpeng and Mengniu have ended their commercial cooperation with Kylian Mbappe after an online video appeared to show the France captain joking about a meme apparently portraying him as Mao Zedong.

Both companies announced that their agreements with the Real Madrid forward were being terminated immediately. The video’s authenticity had not been independently verified by AFP Fact Check.

Brands cite offence to Chinese people

Dongpeng said it had a zero-tolerance policy toward conduct that offended national sentiments. In its statement, the company said, “with immediate effect we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe.”

Mengniu issued a similar announcement, saying it opposed “any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” It also confirmed that all cooperation with Mbappe was ending with immediate effect.

The reported remarks appeared to refer to an internet meme that superimposed Mbappe’s face on Mao, China’s founding leader. The source report described the reference as apparent rather than a confirmed identification.

On Weibo, a topic about Dongpeng ending its cooperation with Mbappe became the platform’s top-trending topic. Dongqiudi, a Chinese sports platform, described the reported remarks as “offensive to China and the Chinese people” and said they had hurt Chinese football fans and the wider Chinese public.

Mbappe’s previous comments on memes

Mbappe had been highly popular among Chinese fans and had millions of followers on social media before the controversy. Dongpeng advertisements featuring AI-generated images of him drinking its sports drink were shown in China during this year’s World Cup.

The footballer also discussed a separate meme in a September interview with L’Equipe. That image portrayed him as a military dictator. Mbappe said part of the meme could be viewed as humorous, but added that comparisons with people responsible for mass suffering were less amusing.

“There’s a part of it that’s funny,” Mbappe said in the interview. “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 added: “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.”

Previous sports controversies in China

The response follows earlier disputes involving international sports figures and comments about politically sensitive issues connected to Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.

The source report said basketball player Dwight Howard referred to Taiwan as a country in 2023 while appearing in a video with Taiwan’s vice president and current president Lai Ching-te. It also said a 2019 post by Daryl Morey supporting protests in Hong Kong led China to suspend sponsorship deals with the NBA and remove games from Chinese television for one year.

Jokes involving Mao remain socially sensitive in China. However, because the video involving Mbappe could not immediately be authenticated, the circumstances surrounding the remarks remain subject to uncertainty.