French football superstar Kylian Mbappe recently landed in trouble over a meme. Discussing an image that apparently superimposed his face on Mao Zedong’s, he referred to the late Chinese leader as someone he thought was a dictator, without naming Mao.
The offhand remark became an international controversy. Chinese sponsors withdrew their support. State television suspended La Liga broadcasts. Apologies followed from Mbappe and his club, Real Madrid, while the league expressed regret over the offence caused.
Mbappe was riffing on one of the running jokes about his outsized influence over his clubs and teammates. He was not delivering a considered assessment of Chinese history. Yet the response turned a passing remark into a test of respect for an entire nation.
Mbappe is not the first athlete to discover how quickly political sensitivities become instruments of discipline. A decade ago, American football star Colin Kaepernick knelt during the United States national anthem to protest systemic racism and police killings of Black people, and was effectively frozen out of the National Football League.
In May, after Spanish footballer Lamine Yamal waved a Palestinian flag during Barcelona’s title celebrations, Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, accused him of inciting hatred and demanded that the club distance itself from the gesture.
Kaepernick and Yamal made deliberate statements. Mbappe made a joke. Yet the distinction offered the latter little protection. An athlete need not deliberately enter politics to discover how tightly his speech is policed.
Mbappe’s extraordinary visibility gives him influence and makes him commercially valuable. But the commercial relationships that make him valuable also hand others the means to discipline him.
The logic is an old one. In ancient Greece, victorious athletes could receive substantial rewards from their cities, including money, meals at public expense and civic honours. Sporting success could open a path to political influence, and their achievements brought prestige to the communities that claimed them.
But the claim could become possessive. According to the ancient Greek geographer and writer Pausanias, the runner Astylus, originally associated with Croton, later proclaimed himself a Syracusan when competing at the Olympic Games. His former compatriots responded by pulling down his statue and converting his house into a prison.
Today, sporting institutions make similar claims on the people whose achievements they celebrate. The athlete represents the nation, embodies the club, carries the sponsor’s values. Each relationship becomes a reason to keep an inconvenient thought to oneself. As Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho put it, “Often the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut, because there’s danger in so many things you say or comment on.”
When a single remark threatens access to a market, the club and the league acquire a financial interest in treating it as misconduct, and the pressure to recant can be extreme. When a state broadcaster suspends an entire league, it punishes thousands of players, staff and viewers who had nothing to do with the remark, effectively holding them hostage to one man’s apology. That is market power being used to enforce conformity.
This is where the contradictions of celebrity become especially apparent. Sporting businesses sell courage, authenticity and individual character. They encourage audiences to identify with the person behind the performance. But the expression of that character becomes a problem when it threatens another part of the business.
The athlete is invited to be themselves, subject to approval.
Further, audiences add their own pressure. We increasingly expect sports stars to address moral and political questions, and we judge their silence as well as their speech. Fame does carry obligations. But athletic excellence does not confer political wisdom, and prominence is not a qualification. If we want courage from athletes, we must also confront the institutions that make courage professionally dangerous.
Mbappe’s case is revealing precisely because he was not taking a heroic stand. The freedom to speak cannot depend on an athlete being historically knowledgeable, perfectly articulate or deliberately brave. It must leave room for an uncertain remark and a foolish joke, as well as a carefully planned protest.
However, it is clear that freedom does not confer immunity from critique. Fans can disagree loudly, and athletes should answer for objectionable speech. But the test should be whether a remark harms people, not whether it embarrasses a state or threatens a balance sheet.
The supposed neutrality of sport helps to hide these demands for conformity. Flags, anthems and governments’ pursuit of prestige already fill sporting spectacles with political meaning. Athletes’ independent expression, on the other hand, attracts demands for silence when it disrupts those authorised messages.
Yet though bringing honour to a community, a champion’s achievement does not give that community ownership over them. Clubs can purchase sporting services. Sponsors can purchase advertising. Neither transaction entitles anyone to dictate an athlete’s convictions.
If sporting institutions insist on selling us the person behind the performance, they must accept that the person has a voice of their own.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
