On Tuesday, two major companies in China let go of French national football team star Kylian Mbappe after a video clip circulated on the Internet in which he appeared to be joking about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
Mocking Mao, the founder of the People's Republic of China who died in 1976, is considered disrespectful in China and remains a social taboo.
Beverage giant Dongpeng said in a statement: “Our company strongly opposes and follows a zero-tolerance policy for any behavior that offends national sentiments,” adding: “As of now, we are ending all forms of cooperation with Kylian Mbappe.”
Advertisements showing artificial intelligence-generated images of the 27-year-old French national team captain drinking a Dongpeng sports drink were regularly shown in China during this year's World Cup.
Mengniu Company, the largest dairy producer in China, also ended its cooperation with the Spanish Real Madrid striker, who until this incident enjoyed widespread popularity among Chinese fans with millions of followers on social media.
Mbappe is known in China as “Guigui”, which is the Chinese translation of the word “turtle”, in reference to his popularity in one of the satirical images inspired by the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” characters.
“As of now, our company is ending all forms of cooperation with Kylian Mbappe,” Mengniu said in a statement.
She added: “(Mengniu) strongly opposes and follows a zero-tolerance policy for any words or actions that offend the feelings of the Chinese people.”
These announcements came after a video clip spread on the Internet in which Mbappé said that the most sarcastic picture on the Internet that made him laugh was a picture of his face superimposed on the face of “someone... I think he is a Chinese dictator.”
This seemed to refer to a satirical image in which Mbappé's face was superimposed on a picture of Mao, one of several similar images that placed the footballer's face on various historical figures.
The fact-checking service of the Agence France-Presse was unable to immediately verify the authenticity of the video.
The hashtag “Dongpeng Beverage Ends its Cooperation with Mbappe” topped the most trending topics on the Chinese “Weibo” platform.
The Dongqiu D platform, one of the largest electronic football platforms in China, said in a statement on Monday evening that Mbappe’s statements were “offensive to China and the Chinese people” and “hurt the feelings of Chinese football fans and the Chinese people.”
In September, Mbappé addressed a previous satirical image that compared him to a tyrannical military ruler, in an interview with the French sports newspaper L'Equipe.
“There is a funny side to it,” he said. It can be seen that some people treat him with a sense of humor. But there is another, less funny side because of the damage caused by hues throughout history.”
He added: “To be compared to people who kill others or cause misery to hundreds of millions of people... I don’t think I have ever done anything like this in my life.”
The controversy in China came one day after Mbappe lost the Ballon d'Or for the best player in the world to Englishman Harry Kane.
Harry Kane is setting his sights on winning the Champions League title with Bayern Munich, and ending England's wait to win a major tournament at the national team level, after he was crowned Monday with the Ballon d'Or for the best player in the world, in the most prominent stage of his career so far.
In his hometown of London, Kane became the first English player to win the award in 25 years, after beating Frenchman Kylian Mbappe and Spaniard Lamine Yamal to win the title of best player in the world.
The coronation of the 33-year-old player was his reward for an exceptional season during which he scored 73 goals in 65 matches for his club and his country, and led Bayern Munich to achieve the domestic double in the league and cup.
The England captain said: “I was going to say it is a dream come true, but it exceeds even my wildest dreams. It is unbelievable.”
He added: “I think this is a great achievement for England and for our country. Holding the ceremony here in London was a good omen for me, and it has been a long wait. “To bring England back to the forefront and bring this trophy here makes me very proud.”
Kane is the all-time top scorer for both the England national team and Tottenham, but his collection of group titles is still limited to the local titles he has won in Germany since joining Bayern Munich in 2023.
Bayern was eliminated from the semi-finals of the Champions League last season by Paris Saint-Germain, who later won the title.
After losing the European Cup finals in 2021 and 2024, Kane received another disappointment with the England national team following the defeat by Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals.
But at 33, he believes he can still win some of the biggest trophies in world football.
“I still have a lot to achieve in this game,” he said. The Champions League at club level, and winning a major tournament with England, are definitely the first priority.”
He added: “There are many wonderful things I want to achieve.”
Unlike Yamal and Mbappe, who won the World Cup as teenagers, Kane was not a candidate from the beginning to become a global star. Tottenham loaned him 4 times to clubs in the lower divisions before he established himself in the first team, but he said that the memories of that stage still push him to succeed at the highest levels for as long as possible.
He continued: “I went through a lot of ups and downs, especially at the beginning of my career, when you are in the process of discovering yourself, whether as a professional or in life in general.”
He added: “I found ways to develop and perhaps surpass players who were more talented than me.”
He continued, saying: “From that moment on, I think it helped shape my character as a professional, because I don’t take anything for granted. “I always know that there is someone like me, or younger than me, trying to take my place, whether in the England national team or in Bayern Munich.”
Bayern Munich's German striker, Harry Kane, was crowned with the 2026 Ballon d'Or, during the ceremony held Monday in London, after a 2025-2026 season full of distinguished numbers and statistics.
The England national team captain was succeeded in the list of award winners by French striker Ousmane Dembélé, a Paris Saint-Germain player.
Kane (33 years old) scored 61 goals in 51 matches with Bayern in all competitions, contributing to the German giant winning the domestic league and cup double. He also led England to the semi-finals of the World Cup and scored six goals during their campaign in the tournament.
Kane became the first English player to win the prestigious award in 25 years, after Michael Owen won it in 2001. He also became the fifth Englishman to win it after Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton, Kevin Keegan and Owen.
Kane also became the first player active in Bayern Munich to win the award since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who won it twice in a row in 1980 and 1981. He is also the fourth Bayern player to win the award after Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer and Rummenigge.
Among the other candidates, Spaniard Lamine Yamal may have been influenced by his modest individual performance in the World Cup, where he scored one goal, despite his country winning the title, in addition to Barcelona's exit from the quarter-finals of the Champions League. The player compensated for this by winning the Best Young Player award for the third year in a row. As for Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, he paid the price of not winning any title during the 2026 season, despite his exceptional individual numbers, after he topped the scorers’ rankings in the Spanish League and the Champions League, and became the all-time top scorer in the World Cup. The intense media campaign that accompanied him in recent weeks did not affect the jury's vote.
