France have just beaten Norway 4-1 in their final World Cup group game and the mood in the changing room is jubilant.Ousmane Dembele, who scored his first international hat-trick, is warmly congratulated by France coach Didier Deschamps. Encircled by his joyous team-mates, who slap him on the back and clap their hands in celebration, the Paris Saint-Germain forward bashfully rubs the back of his head. “I couldn’t have done it without all of you,” he says.Standing off to one side, his arms tightly folded across his chest, Kylian Mbappe wears a face like thunder. As he paces across the room to join his team-mates’ huddle, they abruptly fall quiet. The clatter of his studs across the floor ruptures the silence.Reaching Dembele, Mbappe puts his hand on his team-mate’s shoulder and says: “Good job.” Then, leaning in and lowering his voice to a menacing whisper, he adds: “Never do that again.” A look of horror flashes across Dembele’s face.The scene — it should be said — is a work of pure fiction.For starters, France’s players are wearing the wrong kit — a dark blue home strip, rather than the mint green ensemble they wore against Norway. Dembele is wearing the No 11 shirt, rather than the No 7 he has actually sported at the tournament. The players are also, crucially, cartoon characters. Who speak to each other in Japanese.But the video, produced by an Instagram account specialising in AI-generated, football-themed anime, is an example of a kind of content that has gripped the internet during the 2026 World Cup: memes depicting Mbappe as a ruthless dictator.Here’s Mbappe pacing out for a pre-match pitch inspection dressed like a decorated army general. Here he is flanked by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and China’s President Xi Jinping, leaning over a map of North Africa and appearing to plan a military assault on Morocco.Now he’s sitting on a throne in the middle of a football pitch flanked by Dembele and Michael Olise. Or screaming in Deschamps’ face. Or hurling Gianni Infantino over a table. Or with his face superimposed on Osama bin Laden, Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao. Tastefulness is rarely a concern in the age of AI.But it is not all make-believe. Some videos depict supposedly ‘dictatorial’ things that Mbappe has actually done at the World Cup: directing ground staff as they attempt to brush water from the pitch during France’s rain-delayed group game against Iraq; instructing referee Michael Oliver to pass his captain’s armband to a team-mate as he comes off in the Norway match; being acclaimed by a bowing Deschamps after scoring twice in the 3-0 win over Sweden.Didier Deschamps bows down to Mbappe (Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images)Enterprising street vendors in New York have been selling ‘Dictator Mbappe’ posters and pin badges, while a Paraguay fan was caught on camera during his side’s last 16 defeat by France in Philadelphia wearing a T-shirt portraying the French skipper in despot mode.The phenomenon has become so pronounced that Deschamps felt moved to address it himself.“Lots of people think that Kylian is a dictator, who only thinks about himself,” he told journalists after France’s quarter-final win over Morocco. “(But) he’s exemplary as a captain and in everything that he does on the pitch.”The memes have provided a curious online backdrop to Mbappe’s historic displays at the World Cup, where he goes into Saturday’s third-place play-off against England seeking to win a second successive Golden Boot and score the two goals he needs to overtake Lionel Messi as the tournament’s all-time leading scorer.So where did they come from? What do they mean? And is there actually any truth to them?It all started with a kebab.The Mbappe dictator craze is thought to have taken off after a legal dispute between the player and the manager of a Marseille kebab shop in March 2024.Mohamed Henni, who is also an online influencer and Marseille fan, revealed in a series of social media videos that he had received a letter from Mbappe’s lawyer, Delphine Verheyden, instructing him to stop using her client’s name in the description of one of his kebabs. “Round baker’s bread,” the description read, “as round as Mbappe’s skull.”“Mbappe has turned his name into a dictatorship!” Henni complained in a post to his two million Instagram followers.The allegation quickly gained traction online, not least because it came when the striker was being accused of wielding undue influence behind the scenes at Paris Saint-Germain.Mbappe, it was said, had been sweet-talked into signing a new contract in 2022 by the promise of being given a say on player recruitment and coaching appointments. Neymar and Messi were among the players alleged to have been bundled through the exit door with his blessing.