Fnatic is one of the most successful teams in League of Legends in Europe. They have parted ways with their strategic coach. The reason is screenshots from 2018 that have surfaced. The coach himself described his behavior back then as disgusting.
This is what Fnatic says: The European top team Fnatic announced on Twitter on April 30 that they have “cut all ties” with someone who has a contract with their LoL team.
They fire him after Fnatic was informed about “multiple, extremely concerning messages” from this person.
Fnatic says: These messages are from 2017 and 2018 – before the person was associated with Fnatic.
Fnatic was 2020 runner-up in the European LoL league LEC and is considered one of the most popular LoL teams worldwide.
Pedophilic remarks about 7-year-old
Who is involved? The person who was dismissed is a Norwegian. He has been a strategic coach for Fnatic since January 2020.
The former player, known as Veigar v2, had a reputation as a “toxic player”, as reported by dotesports.
These were the allegations: The screenshots that Fnatic refers to involve the coach allegedly having made “pedophilic remarks” about a 7-year-old several years ago. Her older sister found the screenshots with the pedophilic remarks on her old smartphone and posted them.
Due to these allegations, the coach was apparently fired.
The screenshots were shared on Twitter and later spread via Discord.
Coach says he has changed his life
This is what Veigar says: He has spoken out on Twitter. He says it was 2017/2018. Back then, he was 16 or 17 years old and was with a group of disgusting people. At that time, he said some disgusting things that he cannot even comprehend today.
By the end of 2018, he realized how broken he was and distanced himself from the people who had such a bad influence on him.
Since he has changed, he has never said anything as bad as what was on the pictures.
Today, he cannot even grasp what he said to the woman about her sister. He is ashamed of it.
“Edgy” gaming culture destroys careers
What’s behind this: The internet does not forget. Offensive comments on the internet can follow people and damage their careers. For instance, comedian Kevin Hart had to give up hosting the Oscars (via welt.de) because old, homophobic tweets of his came to light.
Especially professional LoL players and other e-sport athletes often have a “dark online past.” The general tone in gaming is in its worst expressions taboo-less and pays no respect to normal, established boundaries of communication. Violating such boundaries is often seen as chic and “edgy.”
This online past can catch up with gamers when they later have a “real job.” It’s important to note that even LoL professionals are still young and their “bad past” often only dates back a few years.
In 2018, it became known that an e-sports journalist from ESPN, who had reported on the misconduct of Overwatch professionals, had himself been extremely toxic on Twitter years earlier when he was still young.
