Has Kylian Mbappé ruined his reputation in China?

Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid and La Liga have apologized for the star striker’s comments about Mao Zedong, but the damage to their reputations in China will not be easy or quick to repair, experts warn.

The captain of the French team, a world football star, brutally suffered the wrath of Beijing after the broadcast this week of a video in which he evokes the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong by using the word “dictator”.

Although historians hold him responsible for millions of deaths, Mao remains officially revered as the hero of the communist revolution and the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Any attack on his memory is considered an outrage.

Since Tuesday, state media and Internet users have joined forces to castigate the 27-year-old player, in a “spiral of indignation”, according to the expression of Debby Chan, lecturer at the Australian National University. Even though Chinese Internet users do not have access to Mbappé’s exact words.

At the same time, major Chinese brands have cut ties with it, and Spanish first division matches will be removed from the programming of CCTV, the state broadcaster.

Faced with the risk of economic damage, the striker, his club and La Liga very quickly apologized. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured that the government took Mbappé’s apology “very seriously”.

So is the case closed? “From an objective and emotionless point of view, this is clearly a very damaging incident,” Yan Qiang, a veteran sports commentator, told AFP.

“This is seriously damaging to the image of La Liga and Real Madrid in China. With the internet, things get heated quickly on social media and emotions run high,” he says: “An apology doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the story.”

The controversy caused by Mbappé and its fallout is reminiscent of the 2019 incident with the NBA. China effectively cut ties with the American Basketball League when then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey expressed support for the Hong Kong protesters. The NBA then recognized Morey’s freedom of expression.

The NBA, which along with football is the most popular sport in China, disappeared from CCTV broadcasts for more than a year. And we had to wait until 2025 for NBA pre-season matches to be played in China again.

According to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the league lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” because of the rift.

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 broadcast rights, the value of which for the 2024-2025 season was 748 million euros.

According to the newspaper Marca, Real Madrid generates between 10 and 15% of its sales of jerseys and related products in China. The Merengue club also counts Chinese companies among its main sponsors, with Hisense, sports betting company Kaiyun Sports and Linglong Tire featuring prominently.

Adam Zhang, founder of Beijing-based sports consultancy Key-Solution Sports Consulting, said repenting quickly was the first thing to do. “This will influence the decision whether or not to maintain the broadcast ban and, if so, for how long,” he explains to AFP.

In the eyes of sports commentator Yan, it is possible, however, that Mbappé’s reputation will never recover from this controversy.

“Judging by the commercial partnerships and major advertising campaigns he appeared in during the World Cup, he has enormous influence in China,” he notes, “but if this influence cannot be maintained, there can be no question of commercial interests, and La Liga and Real Madrid are bound to be seriously affected.”

“It is really difficult to predict” what will happen, believes Yan: “In the short term, I am certainly not optimistic. If they want to restore their image and the relationship, their future actions and behavior will be decisive.”