Kylian Mbappé scored the only goal in France’s 1-0 World Cup Round of 16 victory over Paraguay on July 4, then found himself at the center of a post-match dust-up with Paraguayan goalkeeper Orlando Gill. But while the sports world dissected a snubbed handshake in Philadelphia, a different kind of chaos was unfolding on-chain: unauthorized meme tokens bearing Mbappé’s name were seeing renewed trading activity.
What actually happened on the pitch
France advanced past Paraguay at Lincoln Financial Field thanks to Mbappé’s composed penalty conversion in the 70th minute. The drama came after the final whistle. Mbappé was celebrating with the crowd when Gill approached for a handshake. Mbappé stepped in front of the goalkeeper without acknowledging him, and Gill responded by throwing the ball at the French forward. Gill later admitted publicly that he “lost his temper” during the incident.
The unauthorized $MBAPPE token ecosystem
Mbappé’s only confirmed blockchain partnership is with Sorare, the Ethereum-based fantasy NFT platform where he became a player-investor in June 2022. That’s it. No official token. No endorsed memecoin.
