Celeste Amarilla, a senator from Paraguay, did not accept her national team’s elimination against France in the round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup. So she went on Twitter and unleashed a series of messages against Kylian Mbappé: she called him “a colonized Cameroonian”, “stupid” and “ugly”, and finished by saying she regretted that no Paraguayan player had slapped him at the end of the match.
Mbappé, France’s captain and the scorer of the penalty goal that sealed the 1-0 victory, did not stay silent. He responded directly on his X account: he called her “a despicable woman unworthy of her office” and made it clear that her words do not represent Paraguay.
The French Football Federation went a step further. It described the senator’s remarks as “totally abhorrent and unacceptable” and confirmed that it will file a legal complaint. Should a public official be held legally accountable for racist insults on social media?