Controversial Chinese football referee Ma Ning is not known for having a fun side, but that might all be about to change.

The 46-year-old, who is notorious for his strict handling of players that step out of line, has launched an account on one of the country’s largest social media platforms days before he heads to take charge of games at the Fifa World Cup.

And it’s fair to say the image presented on the new RedNote account on Wednesday was decidedly different from the one fans expected.

For his profile picture, Ma holds up a red card while staring directly into the camera, shot from a fisheye, high-angle perspective that many users described as “playful” and “cute”.

“This profile picture does not look like a football referee,” one user wrote, while another joked: “Why did I receive a red card as soon as I opened RedNote?”

Ma’s account gained more than 25,000 followers and over 6.7 million views on related topics within three hours of his first post on Wednesday.