MADRID - Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho said on Oct 31 that the club and Kylian Mbappe had responded appropriately by apologising for the France captain referring to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as a dictator.

Real Madrid, Mbappe and La Liga apologised this week following the remarks, while league president Javier Tebas established a crisis unit and met Chinese ambassador Yao Jing on Oct 28 as Spanish football sought to contain the fallout.

Chinese state media outlet China Daily said Mbappe’s remark had “triggered a backlash among his Chinese fans, threatened his lucrative commercial relationships and offered a sharp reminder of the limits of celebrity influence”.

China’s state-owned broadcaster Migu is not showing Real Madrid’s game at Racing Santander on Nov 1, and Chinese brands including dairy companies Mengniu and Shanghai Milkground Food Tech plus Eastroc Beverage ceased all cooperation with Mbappe.

The backlash highlights the risks for athletes and brands in the lucrative Chinese market, where satire about Mao, modern China’s founding leader who governed the country from 1949 until his death in 1976, remains a social taboo.

“These are the dangers of today’s world, where many times the best thing you can do is not open your mouth. Because there is risk in so many things you say or comment on,” Mourinho told reporters ahead of Real’s Nov 1 match.

“But I have also seen him (Mbappe) act very responsibly with a club that, at this regard, is of great class. As far as we’re concerned, that’s it. We have nothing more to say.

“Both Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappe had the class to react immediately, and I feel, as manager, very well represented by both of them.”

The controversy stems from a long-running joke surrounding 27-year-old Mbappe’s influence at club level.

In a video on a French podcast that has since been taken down, Mbappe is heard discussing a humorous meme where his face had been photoshopped on to that of “some guy - I think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

Fans have previously created memes superimposing Mbappe’s face on images of military and political leaders to suggest he has the power to influence decisions at the teams he plays for. Mbappe has been nicknamed “the dictator” in the European press.

Real Madrid are third in the La Liga standings, four points behind leaders Atletico Madrid. REUTERS