Chelsea are facing a total media ban in China following Kenedy’s social media mishap last week, according to the the Mirror.
As the Mirror report, on Monday, Blues winger Kenedy was sent home early from Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the Far East by manager Antonio Conte in wake of a series of offensive messages posted on the Brazilian’s Instagram account.
The Mirror report that the People’s Daily, the main publication of the Communist Party in China, accused the Blues of ‘humiliating’ the country and threatened to treat the club as ‘persona non grata’.
As well as sending the player home, the Premier League champions took to their website to issue an apology to the people of China.
However, despite the club’s best attempts to make amends for the Brazilian’s offensive posts, the Mirror reports that the Chinese press have been ordered to “withdraw all related stories about Chelsea from their homepages and news apps”.
Chelsea’s potential ban from all Chinese media could greatly affect the club’s reputation in China and the East, a market which the club has been trying to break for some time, according to reports in the Mirror.