(TibetanReview.net, Sep03’26) – China has on Sep 2 strongly attacked the Spanish football club Real Madrid after it published a post on its official overseas social media account featuring a photo of the team observing a moment of silence for the Tibet-Nepal avalanche-triggered flash floods on Aug 26 morning, alongside the caption: “Moment of silence… in memory of the victims of the devastating flood that affected the border between Nepal and Tibet.”
Real Madrid published the message on Instagram ahead of its match against Malaga at the Bernabéu stadium in Madrid.
China’s official media expressed outrage in several online attacks targetting the club for allegedly placing Nepal and Tibet on an equal footing and, also, for failing to call “Tibet” by its colonial Chinese name “Xizang”.
“The condolence message was supposed to be extending sympathy. But the Spanish football club was negligent, or political, in its wording, as it placed Xizang, an autonomous region of China, that is nearly 2.5 times the size of Spain, on the same footing as Nepal, a sovereign country,” railed China’s official English-language news outlet chinadaily.com.cn Sep 2 in a report headlined “Real Madrid scores own goal”.
“Real Madrid’s wording was particularly conspicuous because several of its La Liga peers used the straightforward formulation ‘Nepal-China’ in their condolences,” the outlet said. La Liga is the top professional men’s football division in the Spanish football league system.
The club should understand why Chinese supporters noticed the difference, the report said, referring to nationalist Chinese netizens’ criticisms of the top Spanish football club over the matter.
A global institution with tens of millions of followers should know that every caption can travel farther than intended, the outlet said.
It also noted, “A lot of Chinese fans and some media outlets have already contacted Real Madrid to call out the problem and voice their displeasure, demanding a change in wording. Yet, as of Wednesday (Sep 2), the club has remained tight-lipped. This is hardly a smart PR strategy.”
The news outlet also posted another item, which was headlined as “Real Madrid faces backlash from Chinese netizens over listing Xizang alongside Nepal”.
China’s Party mouthpiece globaltimes.cn Sep 1 also ran a piece titled “Real Madrid, please use ‘China’s Xizang’.” And it said: “The post placed ‘Tibet’ and ‘Nepal’ on an equal footing as two parallel entities, whereas several other La Liga clubs used ‘Nepal and China’ in similar memorial copy. After many Chinese netizens expressed their dissatisfaction, Real Madrid chose neither to delete the post nor to offer an explanation.”
It then ran China’s propaganda bulldozer-narrative on Tibet, saying: “Xizang is an integral part of the Chinese territory. This is a universally recognized fact in the international community, a conclusion deeply rooted in history, jurisprudence, and culture, leaving no room for ambiguity. Placing China’s Xizang on par with the sovereign state of Nepal and deliberately stripping away Xizang’s attribute as part of China is, in essence, pandering to separatist narratives in disguise.”
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Meanwhile, China has – six days after the devastating fast-moving chain mudslide – updated the number of the dead on the Tibetan side to 21, as against 16 updated earlier on Aug 28, with 541 still missing. Local authorities had received 876 phone calls from the relatives of the victims and missing people, said China’s official Xinhua news agency Sep 3.
On the Nepali side, the death toll has risen to 1,252, with at least 4,216 people remaining unaccounted for as of Sep 3 noon, reported the kathmandupost.com, citing figures compiled by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).
It said bodies have also been recovered in Gorkha, Dhading and Tanahun. Only 95 of the 1,252 bodies recovered so far have been identified and handed over to families, the report said.
The missing-person figures are expected to change as authorities verify reports from affected communities and receive further information from the field.
While hopes of finding more survivors among the thousands still missing in Nepal were fading on Sept 2, the authorities believed that dozens of workers trapped in the tunnels of hydropower projects hit by the Himalayan catastrophe could still be alive, Reuters Sep 2 cited authorities as saying.