A club apology for a player’s private words is a rare thing in football. On Wednesday, Real Madrid did it anyway, formally joining the public apology offered by Mbappé and insisting that the institution holds deep respect for China, its history, its culture and its citizens.
The club addressed the Chinese people directly.
“Real Madrid C.F. wishes to express its apologies to the Chinese people for any offense caused by the recent remarks of our player Kylian Mbappe.”
The statement landed after a weekend in which the story mutated from a joke on a podcast into something closer to a diplomatic incident, with Beijing’s foreign ministry, La Liga’s president and three major Chinese sponsors all moving in the same direction before the club finally spoke.
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What Mbappé said on ‘The Bridge’
The footage came from “The Bridge,” a podcast filmed in March 2026 and posted earlier this week. Shown a doctored image of his face on the body of Mao Zedong, Mbappé called the picture one of the funniest versions he had seen and described the founder of the Chinese Communist Party as, according to Time, “some guy, I think he’s a Chinese dictator.”
The clip was pulled, but the backlash was already running. Within days, dairy producer Mengniu, cheesemaker Shanghai Milkground Food Tech and beverage firm Eastroc/Dongpeng each terminated their partnerships with the France captain. Time put the combined contract value at roughly 50 million yuan, around €6.7m. State broadcaster CCTV, run by China Media Group, pulled Mbappé’s advertisements and suspended all La Liga transmissions.
Beijing takes Mbappé’s apology ‘seriously’
Mbappé’s own statement went out in French, Chinese and English.
“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,” he said in the three-language statement reported by AFP and carried by Chinese outlets.
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La Liga president Javier Tebas moved a day before the club. He told Chinese audiences on Tuesday that a relationship built over many years could not be damaged by a single incident, and apologized on behalf of the Spanish league.
Beijing’s answer came through foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, who said China would take “seriously” the apology offered by the individual concerned. A separate ministry remark, reported by Time, was blunter: “Words and deeds that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people will naturally be met with opposition from all sectors.”
The sponsors and the broadcasts
Real Madrid’s statement said the club joins in the public apology offered by its player and reaffirmed its commitment to values of respect and cross-cultural understanding. It did not address the commercial fallout directly.
The three terminated partnerships with Mengniu, Milkground and Eastroc/Dongpeng remained in place, and CCTV’s suspension of La Liga transmissions was still in force at the time Real Madrid published its statement on 28 October.
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