By Wanga Charma
Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé has had a turbulent week, to say the very least.
On Sunday, Los Blancos emerged victorious from a fiery El Clásico to close the gap on FC Barcelona at the top of La Liga.
And come Tuesday evening, the Frenchman was announced as the runner-up for the ever-prestigious Ballon d’Or award after one of the most dominant statistical seasons of his career thus far.
But as if that wasn’t enough of a gut punch, he now finds himself on the wrong side of a political controversy in China.
His unfortunate comments about a former Chinese leader have cost the global superstar a multitude of sponsorships and done irreparable damage not only to his own image, but also to his club, league and endorsers.
The birth of a meme
The internet is a very fickle place.
What started as a meme all the way back in 2022 has now blown up to global proportions.
See, Mbappé has been a footballing phenom since he was a teenager – he was installed as the face of the biggest club in France, Paris Saint-Germain, and given the task of making them a force to be reckoned with, particularly in Europe.
Despite his age, he answered the call for club and country, leading France to a FIFA World Cup crown at just 19 years old.
During his PSG tenure, he won six Ligue 1 titles and was runner-up in the Champions League in 2020.
That kind of success at such a young age comes with an incredible amount of influence, both at club and international level.
In time, there was a recurring joke among football fans that Mbappé was no longer merely a player at PSG, but also so directly involved in the internal affairs and decisions of the club that he was practically running it himself.
It was all in jest, of course, but after the 2022 World Cup, where he finished as the standout player, his level of stardom seemed to jump even higher.
As a result, what started out as a joke snowballed into a viral meme that became crudely known as ‘Dictator Mbappe’.
That joke has been circling within online football discourse ever since.
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The joke goes too far
When Mbappé moved to the Spanish capital in the summer of 2024, the meme followed him.
While he was his usual dominant self on the pitch, the team as a whole struggled to win silverware.
This led to a complete club overhaul over the last two years, and unfortunately for Mbappé, the meme began to gain even more traction and reached its viral peak in 2026.
For the longest time, the footballing world subconsciously knew he had seen the meme, but the man himself had yet to publicly comment on it or acknowledge it.
However, when recently asked on talk show The Bridge what his favourite internet meme of himself was, Mbappé referred to the image of his face edited onto a man he described as “a Chinese dictator”.
The man to whom he was referring was Mao Zedong.
He appeared harmlessly amused by the image and even mentioned that he used it while gaming with his friends, but the comments severely offended a large portion of the Chinese population and is now doing devastating damage to the star’s image.
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The layers of simple comments
While we have to give Mbappé some sort of grace in that he didn’t actually name the former leader, the image itself and his public acknowledgement of it have really rubbed many the wrong way.
From the perspective of the Chinese audience, a foreign celebrity was laughing at an image of their founding national leader and using a politically offensive term, ‘dictator’, to describe him.
Mao Zedong is, of course, a somewhat polarising figure in Chinese history.
He helped establish the modern People’s Republic of China and is associated with Chinese sovereignty and unity, but his rule also included two particularly destructive periods in Chinese history.
Many historians therefore describe him as an ‘authoritarian dictator’.
However, the Chinese government, while recognising serious mistakes during his rule, continues to honour his revolutionary achievements.
In essence, Mbappé’s comments make him seem dismissive of Chinese history and an important aspect of their national identity.
As a result, they have now drastically affected the relationship between himself and his endorsers.
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The nasty repercussions and fallout
Though the comments in question were made and recorded back in March or April, the clip went viral in October, the same night this year’s Ballon d’Or ceremony took place.
Indeed, it exploded on Reddit, X and numerous Chinese football platforms.
The following day, three separate Chinese companies announced the termination of their relationship with Mbappé – Dongpeng, Mengniu Dairy and Shanghai Milkground.
That very same day, he issued a public apology, as did La Liga itself.
Real Madrid then issued their own public apology the day after.
Football TikToker Tiannah Pedler (@tiannahpedler) summarised the entire ordeal perfectly, saying: “Suddenly, making light of a meme of yourself is not just a personal controversy, because it actually presents a real commercial risk for brands who really want to grow.
“You cannot keep politics out of football because you can’t keep politics out of anywhere, especially global business, and football is a global business.”
It has truly been a week, like chalk and cheese, for the French captain.
Los Blancos will continue their league campaign at Racing Santander on Sunday, and it will be interesting to see if this saga affects the larger Madrid squad, their form and Mbappé’s performance.
After all, it cannot be easy to lose both a Ballon d’Or and a host of sponsorships and endorsements off an unfortunate internet joke and still be expected to perform at the highest level on the global footballing stage.
Yet again, the internet is a fickle place.
One day you’re on top of the world – the next it’s falling apart.
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