Kylian Mbappe apologised to China on Tuesday after three Chinese brands ended their agreements with the Real Madrid forward over a comment about a meme depicting him as Mao Zedong, the founding leader of Communist China.
The France captain posted his apology on social media on Tuesday morning, less than a day after finishing second behind Harry Kane at the Ballon d'Or ceremony in London. According to CNN, Mbappe said his comment was ill-judged and that he now understood it had hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world.
"I apologise to everyone my words have upset. This was absolutely not my intention. I have deep respect for the Chinese people and their history, and I am sincerely sorry," Mbappe said in the statement reported by CNN and the Associated Press.
What Mbappe said in the clip
The row began with a short clip circulated on X from an appearance connected to The Bridge, a French online talk show. Asked about his favourite meme of himself, Mbappe replied that it was "a video someone made of a guy... I think he was a Chinese dictator", before an altered image showed his face on the blue-suited body of Mao Zedong.
Fans online have long joked that Mbappe overshadows team-mates and clubs, and memes casting him as a dictator are widely shared. In China, however, jokes about Mao, who led the country from 1949 until his death in 1976, remain a serious taboo. Reuters, via its reporting of the apology, noted it had not been able to authenticate the video.
The backlash was swift. As theScore reported from the Associated Press, beverage maker Dongpeng, dairy giant Mengniu and cheese maker Milkground each announced on Tuesday that they were ending agreements with Mbappe, saying in similarly worded statements that they oppose any words and actions that hurt national sentiment.
Broadcasts suspended as brands walk away
The commercial damage did not stop with the three sponsors. China Media Group said it had suspended broadcasts of La Liga matches and other games featuring Mbappe, removed advertisements featuring him, and demanded an apology from the player and Real Madrid. Mbappe's face is a familiar sight in advertising across China, from subway stations to lifts, and he had fronted a Mengniu campaign around the 2026 World Cup.
China's foreign ministry also weighed in, saying words and actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people would naturally meet joint opposition from across Chinese society. By Tuesday, some searches for Mbappe's name on the state-controlled internet were failing to return results.
It is a jarring comedown from a weekend that should have been pure celebration. Mbappe reached 100 goals for Real Madrid in Sunday's El Clasico win over Barcelona, a landmark covered in our Around Europe roundup, and then pushed Kane closest in the Ballon d'Or vote, as the full story of Kane's win showed.
So what happens next for Mbappe and Madrid?
For Real Madrid, the immediate question is whether an apology ends the matter or whether the La Liga broadcast suspension in one of world football's biggest markets drags on. The club sells the Mbappe project globally, and China is central to that commercial map. For Mbappe himself, the episode is a reminder that a throwaway line in a light-hearted interview can cost more, commercially, than a bad month on the pitch.
On the field, nothing changes: Mbappe remains Madrid's leading man and France's captain, and his football this season has been exceptional. Off it, his team will now have to rebuild relationships with sponsors and broadcasters who moved within hours to distance themselves.
Beyond the Final Whistle: Mbappe did the only thing he could do, and he did it quickly — a full, unqualified apology with no attempt to blame the clip or the context. But the speed at which three brands and a state broadcaster cut ties shows how fragile a global star's commercial empire really is: it took one sentence about a meme to undo years of careful image-building in China. The goals will keep coming. Whether the Chinese market forgives as quickly as it punished is the real story now.
Was Mbappe's apology enough, or should Real Madrid say more? Let us know what you think in the comment section.
