Mbappe China sponsorships have ended after Dongpeng and Mengniu dropped the football star over alleged remarks about a meme featuring Mao Zedong

Two major Chinese brands have ended their sponsorship partnerships with French football star Kylian Mbappe following the circulation of a video in which he allegedly joked about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

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Beverage company Dongpeng and dairy producer Mengniu announced the decisions on Tuesday, citing concerns that the remarks had offended Chinese national sentiment.

“Our company firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments,” Dongpeng said in a statement, announcing the immediate termination of its partnership with the Real Madrid forward.

Mengniu, China’s largest dairy producer, also confirmed that it was ending its collaboration with the 27-year-old France captain.

“With immediate effect, our company is terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe,” the company said.

Mengniu added that it opposed words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.

The decisions followed the circulation of a video in which Mbappe reportedly described the funniest internet meme he had seen as one featuring his face edited onto that of “some guy — I think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

The comment appeared to refer to an online meme depicting Mbappe as Mao, who led the Chinese Communist Party and died in 1976.

However, the authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified by AFP Fact Check.

Mao remains a sensitive figure in China, where jokes perceived as disrespectful towards the former leader can provoke public criticism.

Mbappe had been popular among Chinese football fans, attracting millions of followers on Chinese social media.

He is also nicknamed “Guigui”, a Chinese translation of “Turtle”, linked to an internet meme inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Dongpeng had used AI-generated images of Mbappe drinking its sports beverage in advertising campaigns shown in China during this year’s World Cup.

The controversy also attracted attention on Weibo, China’s major social media platform, where the termination of Dongpeng’s partnership with Mbappe became a trending topic.

Some users supported the companies’ decisions, arguing that the alleged remarks crossed a line, while others called for Mbappe’s image to be removed from the beverage company’s products.

Chinese football outlet Dongqiudi criticised the reported comments in a statement on Monday evening, describing them as offensive to China and its people and saying they had hurt the feelings of Chinese football fans.

The incident follows Mbappe’s comments in September about another internet meme depicting him as a military dictator.

In an interview with French sports newspaper L’Équipe, he said some memes were intended as harmless fun but expressed discomfort with comparisons to historical figures responsible for widespread suffering.

“There’s a part of it that’s funny. 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 said.

“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,” Mbappe added.

The controversy comes amid a history of disputes involving international sports figures and politically sensitive issues in China, including Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.

In 2023, former NBA player Dwight Howard sparked criticism on Chinese social media after referring to Taiwan as a country in a video featuring Taiwan’s then-vice-president and current president, Lai Ching-te.

In 2019, a social media post by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests prompted a backlash in China, including the suspension of sponsorship agreements and a year-long withdrawal of NBA games from Chinese television.

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The latest episode highlights the commercial risks international athletes can face when remarks or online content are perceived as crossing political or cultural sensitivities in major sponsorship markets.