Mao meme comments won't 'cause serious economic problems' for Mbappé, says expert

Kylian Mbappé, the captain of the French national team and one of the sport's global superstars, is in hot water. What got him there is his unfortunate nickname on social media, The Dictator, over his huge influence on and off the pitch. While he was on a French talk show, the Real Madrid forward was asked about the funny online memes about him. He then said the one that makes him laugh most is this picture of a man he thinks is a Chinese dictator. Those who didn't laugh were Chinese officials. Mbappé found himself quickly at the center of a diplomatic storm and a fierce backlash. Sensing that something was wrong, Mbappé then issued the following apology. My comment was ill-judged, and I now understand that it hurt many people in China and in Chinese communities around the world. I apologize to everyone my words have upset. I'm sincerely sorry. Is that the end of it? let's bring in Irish sports journalist and football expert Ken Early, good morning and good to see you Ken, morning, good to see you too so is the lesson learned here that when you're a football star never joke about leaders who died half a century ago well uh it's not a rule that many players have have actually broken uh before now and i'm sure Kylian Mbappé was as surprised as anybody to discover uh that his comments made some six months ago uh had caused such uh such offense in China um but it's not the first time that something along these lines has happened uh the German player Mesut Özil who played for Arsenal at the time in 2019 uh posted on social media about the uh the plight of the Uyghur people in China and unlike what Mbappé has done his was actually direct political criticism of China over what's happening with the Uyghur people there and in that instance well they said okay Arsenal won't be on Chinese television anymore and Mesut Ozil will not be mentioned on Chinese social media and Arsenal his club quickly issued a response distancing themselves saying this is his opinion not ours and Ozil was in fact sold not long after that although i don't think it was for that reason but these types of things have have happened before and can at least three Chinese companies have already cut ties with Mbappe how much money could this controversy cost him and how serious is the damage to his global brand i don't think it's going to cause serious economic problems for Kylian Mbappe obviously nobody wants to lose sponsors uh i did see that Javier Tebas who is the head of La Liga in Spain went to visit the Chinese ambassador in Spain to apologize which suggests that he at least sees it as potentially a problem if Real Madrid games aren't going to be shown on Chinese television Now, I'm sure they will be. What usually happens is there's an angry response from China and then there's an institutional apology, and then things get smoothed over. But it sort of shows this situation. sports clubs sports leagues want to market to a global marketplace but that global marketplace is divided into different political regimes and increasingly political statements of any kind and Mbappé's wasn't even a political statement he was simply laughing at a meme someone had presented to him which had some political kind of satirical political content that any political statement is going to cause commercial issues We'll be right back.