Major Chinese brands drop Mbappé as backlash grows over Mao joke
He allegedly said his "favourite meme" is "the one where they put my face on a Chinese dictator".
French football star Kylian Mbappé has been dropped by two major Chinese brands for allegedly insulting national sentiments. Dongpeng Beverage and Mengniu, two prominent Chinese companies, ended their cooperation with the Real Madrid forward after a video surfaced online showing Mbappé joking about Mao Zedong, China's founding leader. In China, jokes about Mao are considered highly disrespectful and are a social taboo.
Dongpeng Beverage stated in a statement that their company "firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments," and immediately terminated all cooperation with Mbappé. Similarly, Mengniu, China's largest dairy producer, also cut ties with the football superstar, adding that they "firmly oppose and have a zero-tolerance policy towards any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people."
The video of Mbappé joking about Mao Zedong was widely circulated online, causing an uproar on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where the post "Dongpeng Beverage ends cooperation with Mbappe" trended. Fans and users urged the drinks giant to remove Mbappé's image from their energy drink bottles, condemning the "extremely serious wrong remarks" as "completely unacceptable."
Mbappé addressed a similar controversy in September when he commented on a meme depicting him as a military dictator, saying that while some parts of the meme were funny, the comparison to historical figures who caused misery was not. The controversy in China comes a day after Mbappé was named runner-up for the Ballon d'Or, the most prestigious individual award in football.
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