‘Despicable Woman’: Soccer Star Kylian Mbappe Fires Back at Paraguayan Official for Racist Remarks

Anthony Bibard/AP

French soccer star Kylian Mbappe called out a Paraguayan official over the racist comments she recently made about him.

Mbappe scored lone goal in France’s 1-0 win over Paraguay in the FIFA World Cup round of 16. After the match, the 27-year-old was highly critical of the Paraguayan national team’s style and even accused the team of playing dirty.

On Monday, Celeste Amarilla — a sitting senator in Paraguay — made an appalling social media post calling Mbappe a “brute” and a “colonized Cameroonian.” The full tweet, translated from Spanish, read:

This brute hasn’t even learned to write. Instead of breastmilk, he grew up sucking on coconuts, and the most educated creatures he ever heard were chimpanzees.

You should’ve given him the middle finger, Orlando Gill.

A colonized Cameroonian, pretending to be French, resentful, newly rich, arrogant, and ugly.

He was nervous and scared to death all game, like his whole team. They didn’t even manage to score a single goal, until they got lucky with a penalty.

The only thing many of us blame the team for is not giving him a full-handed slap at the end of the game. I’m not even a football fan.

The post has since been deleted.

Hours later, Mbappe responded with a scathing statement calling Amarilla “despicable.” He also praised the Paraguayan fans who attended Saturday’s game. Translated from French, Mbappe said:

Madame Celeste Amarilla,

You are a despicable woman and unworthy of your position.

You do not represent Paraguay, that country which has sweated passion and honor throughout the competition. Through your recklessness and your brazen racism, the entire world has already forgotten the journey and the historic effort that your players accomplished during this World Cup, making way for an incompetent woman who gives the worst possible image of her country.

I will never allow people like her the freedom to spread their hatred and racism across the world.

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