Mbappé boycott in China: No more fun

It was a casual statement from a French podcast from seven months ago. And yet it has brought football star Kylian Mbappé a boycott in the People's Republic of China, one of the most important markets for sponsorship deals worldwide.

What had happened? The 27-year-old striker was asked at the time which of his countless memes – i.e. photo montages circulating on the Internet – he found particularly successful. Mbappé had to think longer. Then he said with a grin on his face: about a guy who was probably a “Chinese dictator”.

What is meant is a photo of the footballer who was given the bald head and the iconic Zhongshan jacket of China's founder Mao Zedong. The whole thing looks pretty funny, even for non-football fans. And the term “dictator” is definitely historically correct. But Beijing's party leadership still wasn't in the mood to laugh.

When Mbappé's statements - for reasons that remain unclear - first circulated on the Chinese Internet at the end of October, the state reacted with an unprecedented boycott campaign: the party newspapers denounced the Frenchman on their front pages, the patriotic Internet community raged on social media, and the Foreign Ministry judged: Mbappé had "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people."

The careless remark is not only likely to cost the football star millions of dollars: all Chinese beverage manufacturers that advertised with Mbappé's likeness have canceled their sponsorship contracts. State television also announced that it would no longer broadcast all games from Mbappé's club Real Madrid.

Many Chinese people also react openly racist online. “He should go pick cotton and be re-educated,” complains a user on the online platform Weibo.

However, most Chinese people do not know which statements made by the footballer allegedly hurt their feelings. The relevant passage from the podcast interview has long since been censored on the Chinese Internet. And anyone who asked the Chinese AI chatbots only received the following response: "Hello, I can't answer this question at the moment. Let's talk about something else."

The obsequious apologies were almost as absurd as China's boycott campaign against Mbappé. “I apologize to anyone who was upset by my words,” the Frenchman said. His team Real Madrid posted: "Our club has deep respect for China, its history, its culture and its citizens, as well as for the millions of Chinese fans who treat Real Madrid with affection and admiration." So far the kowtow has had no effect.

The matter shows how determined the Chinese government is to restrict freedom of expression even beyond its own borders: no public figure may claim the right to cross the Communist Party's “red lines”.

“Mao revisionism is absolutely grotesque: State media demands that foreigners bow down to a monster that killed tens of millions of their own ancestors,” comments British human rights activist and China critic Luke de Pulford: “Mbappé simply said something that everyone who has even superficially studied history knows: Mao was not just a dictator, but the greatest mass murderer of the last century.” Journalist Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned in China for several years, said: “The more tied you are to China, the more you become its prisoner.”

In fact, as a China correspondent, you repeatedly encounter the self-censorship that is already a given within the sports world. A few years ago, the China representative of a German Bundesliga club proudly said during a private conversation that “thank God” he was able to talk the Muslim star striker out of posting a message of solidarity with the Uyghurs. At that time, hundreds of thousands of the Turkic people in Xinjiang in western China were sent to political re-education camps.

The real irony of this alleged provocation may have been lost on the party leadership in Beijing: Mbappé's so-called Mao meme was created to admirably underline how powerful the striker has become.