French basketball player Yabusele was reprimanded by Chinese sports officials and fined $ 1,400 for not looking at the country's flag when saluting the flag.

Television images showed Guerschon Yabusele, the French player currently playing for the Nanjing Basketball Association of China Basketball Association (CBA) basketball team, looking down, not looking at the Chinese flag during the flag-raising ceremony before the match. duel 6/12.

This behavior caused Yabusele to be "heavily reprimanded" by CBA and fined $ 1,400 a day later. Yabusele, a French player who joined the Nanjing Wang team earlier this year, has not commented on the incident.

Under President Xi Jinping, China strongly fostered patriotism and passed a law stipulating a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment for people who did not respect the national anthem in 2017.

The punishment against Yabusele player has caused a lot of opinion on Chinese social networks.

"He was very happy when he received money from China but did not respect it at all," a commenting account on Weibo. "The player must be banished immediately and his club must be deprived of the right to compete for the championship," another account added.

However, many also consider the punishment with Yabusele too strict. "It is nonsense. First, he is not Chinese. Moreover, he also stood up and did not have any offensive gestures," one Weibo user said.

"He has his head down. So what? In what era is CBA living? 50 years ago?", Another account commented.

Yabusele was not the first foreign athlete to violate patriotic regulations in China. Last year, Shandong midfielder Diego Tardelli of Shandong club Lu Nang was banned from playing a match for rubbing his eyes while singing the national anthem before the match.