YouTube has blocked access to a recorded broadcast of a Paraguayan Senate general session. The blockage occurred because the session included visual excerpts from the FIFA World Cup during a highly charged debate surrounding comments made by Senator Celeste Amarilla about French football star Kylian Mbappé.
The General Directorate of Communication for Paraguay’s Upper House addressed the incident on social media platform X, releasing a statement to clarify that the action was not a punitive sanction against the Senate’s official institutional channel. Instead, the video was flagged due to automated copyright detection triggered by the soccer footage shown inside the legislative chamber.
“The situation is preliminarily related to the automatic detection of copyrighted audiovisual content during today’s [Wednesday] parliamentary debate, wherein references were made to the Football World Cup and related audiovisual snippets were broadcast,” the Senate administration explained.
Technical teams from Senate TV are currently isolating the flagged footage to resolve the dispute and restore the remainder of the session’s archive. Regular live legislative broadcasts remain unaffected.
Read more about this topic: Paraguay’s senator demands apology from Mbappé after “colonized Cameroonian” jab
The five-hour Senate debate followed a massive international backlash against Senator Amarilla. The controversy began on Saturday when Amarilla posted a tirade on social media following Paraguay’s 1-0 round-of-16 elimination from the World Cup by France—a match decided by a penalty kick scored by Mbappé.
In her post, Amarilla claimed that Mbappé, “instead of his mother’s milk, sucked on coconuts, and the most cultured thing he has ever heard in his life are chimpanzees.”
The remarks drew immediate condemnation from the United Nations, the French Football Federation, and French President Emmanuel Macron, all of whom denounced the statements as explicitly racist. Mbappé personally fired back at the lawmaker on social media, labeling her a “despicable woman unworthy of her office.”
During Wednesday’s session, the Paraguayan Senate ultimately voted by a majority to pass a resolution formally condemning Amarilla’s “discriminatory and racist expressions.”
Read more: World Cup: Mbappé equals Klose’s 16 goals record (with video)
However, the session itself was highly volatile. Far from backing down, Amarilla doubled down on her hostility inside the chamber, calling the French captain a “son of a bitch” and accusing him of maintaining an arrogant demeanor, specifically pointing out his refusal to shake hands with Paraguayan goalkeeper Orlando Gill after the final whistle.
“I refuse to reduce history, all of that enormous France, all of that massive cultural, artistic, and democratic legacy, to Mbappé,” the senator shouted, adding she refused to view France as “Mbappé’s land.”
Amarilla received backing from fellow Senator Yolanda Paredes, who claimed that Mbappé had acted in a “racist and xenophobic” manner to humiliate Paraguayan players on the pitch. Conversely, Congress President Basilio Núñez criticized Amarilla’s behavior, publicly advising his colleague that she would be better off becoming “the master of her own silence.”
