{"id":818335,"date":"2026-10-30T05:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818335\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T05:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T05:28:14","slug":"china-made-real-madrids-mbappe-apologise-over-mao-remark-but-many-people-dont-know-exactly-what-he-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818335\/","title":{"rendered":"China made Real Madrid’s Mbapp\u00e9 apologise over Mao remark – but many people don’t know exactly what he said"},"content":{"rendered":"

China’s sophisticated censorship system, which cuts 1.4 billion people off from the global internet, meant many didn’t know exactly what had happened.<\/p>\n

The accusation of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” alone seemed enough to trigger a tsunami of anger, amplified by social media algorithms and a heavily controlled internet, where people are wary of disagreeing with the majority view.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t long before Mbapp\u00e9, one of the biggest football stars in the world, said he was “sincerely sorry” for his “ill-judged” comment<\/a>. His club, Real Madrid, and the Spanish league La Liga, also issued apologies. China is a huge market for the world’s most popular sport.<\/p>\n

Beijing later confirmed it was taking the footballer’s apology “seriously”. China Media Group has yet to say whether broadcasts will resume.<\/p>\n

But the anger online lingered. <\/p>\n

“An apology is the least he should do, but I don’t forgive him. I support a ban on him,” read a top comment on Weibo.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 did not mention Mao by name in the interview, but many felt any joke that involved the founder of Communist China crossed a line.<\/p>\n

“Do you know who you hurt? He is the spiritual pillar of the Chinese people,” read one Weibo comment liked by more than 700 users.<\/p>\n

“He’s the most important figure in our history. Do you think a simple apology can make everything okay?” another wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s sophisticated censorship system, which cuts 1.4 billion people off from the global internet, meant many didn’t know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-818335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}