A Turkish “League of Legends” player has left his professional team due to insults against him and his homosexuality. His teammates, however, deny this.
What happened? Mustafa Kemal “Dumbledoge” Gökseloğlu, who gained fame in 2015 as a supporter by getting a First Blood against Superstar Faker, is making serious allegations against his former teammates from the Turkish team Papara SuperMassive.
His bot lane partner Berkay “Zeitnot” Aşıkuzun is alleged to have behaved homophobically. He briefly left the team in 2017 for this reason. At that time, however, it was not officially known that Dumbledoge was gay.
However, the support player announced this to the public in April 2018. In 2019, he then returned to SuperMassive. In February 2020, there were further insults, after which Dumbledoge left the team and issued a statement (which was translated into English on reddit).
What do his teammates say? His bot lane partner Zeitnot denies the allegations on Twitter. He claims he is not the “Zeitnot” from the shared screenshots. Furthermore, he has never made discriminatory comments.
However, he confirms that there were disputes with Dumbledoge and also “rude behavior” on his part after a disappointing year in 2019. Therefore, the team also imposed a penalty.
Insults began as early as 2017
When did the problems begin? Dumbledoge goes back to the point when he first left SuperMassive in his long statement. He emphasized that the organization always took good care of him. There were no issues with the three other teammates either.
In 2017, shortly before being eliminated at MSI, he received screenshots from someone he wishes to remain unnamed. In these, eSports personalities allegedly made homophobic comments. His teammate Zeitnot was also in that chat.
Some of these individuals were then blocked by Dumbledoge on social media. However, he could not escape Zeitnot, his teammate, with whom he had lived together for 5 months and whom he considered a friend.
He then decided to leave the team.
What happened after leaving? For contractual reasons, Dumbledoge could not join any other professional team in the TCL. After failing to find a new team in Brazil as well, he joined a team in the Academy League.
In 2018, he joined the team Royal Youth. However, there were some strange events that led to Dumbledoge leaving the team. He then returned to SuperMassive in 2019 because he saw them as one of the strongest teams in the league and expected success only with them.
New attack in February 2020
How did the second departure occur? In the game against Fenerbahçe, Dumbledoge allegedly gave his coach and teammates the option of which support champion he should play in the match. From this, his teammates Zeitnot and Pades interpreted that he had no interest in a coordinated play and communication.
In the next match, however, Dumbledoge clearly communicated which champion he wanted to play. Yet, that also apparently did not sit well.
After he stated that with his champion combo, he could win all trades against Xayah and Rakan (the opponents’ champions), he received a nasty reply from his teammate:
- “That’s why I fucked you in the playoffs.”
This response troubled Dumbledoge. When he also heard Zeitnot talk badly about others and himself after the game, he confronted his teammate.
Further insults reportedly occurred during this confrontation. Zeitnot also allegedly approached him and was then stopped by Pades. After these insults, Dumbledoge decided to leave the SuperMassive team again.
No statement from the team, but apologies from others
How did the team react? SuperMassive has only announced that the team and Dumbledoge have parted ways. There is no statement on the allegations yet.
Aside from Zeitnot, who denies the allegations, the other teammates have not commented.
However, there have been other apologies.
Who has apologized? Some participants from the above-linked chat have spoken out. Şükrü “Uthenera” Şentürk, former coach of Dark Passage, shared via Twitter that he regrets his statements from back then.
Dumbledoge apparently received an apology for this some time ago.
The former top laner of Royal Youth, Kaan “Elwind” Atıcı, also spoke out. He had already apologized to Dumbledoge at the Rift Rivals in 2018 for the chat at that time.
Ben 2 yıl önce yüz yüze Vietnam’da özürümü diledim zaten, yaptığım yanlışı 2 yıl önce farkedip düzeltmeye çalışmıştım, ve aramızı düzelttiğimi düşünüyordum. Buraya ne yazarsam yazayım tatmin olmayacaksınız ama tekrar Kemal’den özür dilerim
— Kaan Atıcı (@elwind) February 21, 2020
What happens next? According to his own statement, Dumbledoge is unsure whether he can continue as a professional player.
In addition, Riot Turkey has not yet commented on the incident. It is possible that further consequences will follow. This was also the case in Korea when problems arose with Team Griffin:
