Less than a month into its premiere season, The Overwatch League is throwing a red card.
Felix “xQc” Lengyel of the Dallas Fuel received a four-match suspension and $2,000 fine on Friday for violating the League’s code of conduct. The night prior, Lengyel taunted another player with a homophobic slur on his personal Twitch channel.
The stream followed the Fuel’s 4-0 loss to the Houston Outlaws. Lengyel took issue with one of their players, Austin “Muma” Wilmot, mimicking him after the victory, and said the openly gay player could “Suck a fat … ”
Well, you can fill in the blank (or hear it for yourself in the clip below).
The League took swift action, issuing a press release the next day.
“The Overwatch League takes standards of players behavior seriously, whether during league play or otherwise, and is committed to responding swiftly when violations occur,” it read.
Fuel later expressed support for the League’s decision via Twitter, adding that Lengyel would also sit out the remainder of Stage 1 — which runs until February 10.
Before our match begins, we would like to issue this statement regarding @overwatchleague‘s decision to suspend @xQc. #burnblue pic.twitter.com/26ffHaPPEz
— Dallas Fuel (@DallasFuel) January 20, 2018
In the interim, the post continues, Fuel will provide him with additional coaching to ensure he “is reflective of the principles of the Dallas Fuel organization, his teammates, and the Overwatch League.”
Lengyel tweeted an apology to Wilmot on Friday, explaining that there was no “malicious intent” in his words. He spoke too fast without thinking, he said.
I didn’t say what I said on stream with malicious intent, I legit did not compute the whole thing before. I speak too fast, everything happens too fast. Everything is so fking trash lately. Hope I can turn this into something good, sorry @Muma :/
— xQc (@xQc) January 19, 2018
This is not the first scandal to hit Overwatch League players. In November, the League slapped a 30-game suspension on the Philadelphia Fusion’s Su-min “Sado” Kim for account boosting profiteering — a violation of Blizzard’s end user license agreement.
