Counter Strike 2: FURIA apologized to Chinese netizens for mistakenly sharing an internet meme of FalleN and Mao Zedong..

Brazilian Counter Strike 2 esports club FURIA apologized to Chinese netizens on Thursday via its official Instagram account for mistakenly sharing an internet meme of FalleN and the late Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong.

FURIA's official statement read: "This content hurt the feelings of our Chinese fans and violated our respect for Chinese culture and history. This was a mistake in our internal review process. We will work with our Chinese friends living in Brazil to begin learning about Chinese culture and help the team truly understand and respect it."

Despite FURIA's apology, many Chinese netizens remain unhappy. These netizens believe the incident has caused serious harm to the Chinese people, and further apologies are insufficient to undo the damage. Some even summarized the club's actions as "if only they had known then what they know now," highlighting their self-inflicted consequences for not seriously considering the consequences.

It's worth mentioning that Brazilian internet culture has a long-standing tradition of creating memes by combining the heads of various figures with Mao Zedong's portrait for humorous purposes, a practice that has never been associated with any political motives or stances. 

According to Dust2, FURIA shared a meme image a few days ago on their social media platform, photoshopping FalleN's head onto a classic portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. The incident immediately drew fierce criticism from Chinese netizens. Realizing the inappropriateness of the post, FURIA quickly deleted the entire meme image within an hour.

In fact, FURIA has many fans in China. Last year, when the team traveled to China to participate in the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Chengdu and defeated Vitality to win the championship, they received enthusiastic congratulations from many Chinese fans.

FURIA will visit China again this September and November to participate in FISSURE Playground 3 and IEM Beijing, respectively.

As the controversy continues, it remains to be seen whether the Brazilian Counter Strike 2 club will face further boycotts from netizens at those events.

Image source: Internet / HLTV