Two Overwatch World Cup scandals involving transphobic comments and alleged underage grooming have brought a cloud over the tournament.
Blizzard has issued statements on two talent-related Overwatch World Cup scandals during the first week of qualifying rounds for the tournament. The first involves a content creator for the Saudi Arabian OWC team making transphobic comments directed at Poland's trans commentator. Meanwhile, an Overwatch League player for the Vancouver Titans was removed from Team USA for allegations involving the alleged grooming of an underage girl.
We'll detail the timeline of events below, one at a time.
Overwatch World Cup: Poland vs Saudi Arabia
The chain of events for the first Overwatch World Cup scandal begins on Saturday, June 24 and the online qualifying match between the Polish and Saudi Arabian national teams. Tempers began hot as Poland's players swapped their in-game icons to the Overwatch Pride Month emblems in an attempt to troll players from the staunchly anti-LGBTQIA+ country. However, the situation soon expanded when the Saudi Arabian co-streamer made flagrant comments towards Polish and trans commentator CeeBee, on stream during a break.
The commentator in the clip is confirmed to be the content creator LegendryOW. During a break on the stream he made derogatory comments in reference to CeeBee, laughing and calling the commentator a "pig" and "an animal."
The Overwatch community was quick to respond and admonish the comments. This includes the likes of Overwatch League caster LemonKiwi and OWL legend Jake taking a stance on the subject.
The Path to Pro statement
The Overwatch Path to Pro Twitter account issued a statement on the events late Monday with the following words.
Over the weekend, an Overwatch World Cup co-streamer used derogatory language towards one of our casters in violation of our rules. We have removed this co-streamer from all official OW Esports programs moving forward. We apologize to any community members who were hurt by the language.
The violation is in reference to LegendryOW, who has made no comment on the situation other than posting quotes to his Twitter account from Al-Nawawi's Forty Hadith of Muslim teachings. Meanwhile, the Polish co-streamer CeeBee responded on a Reddit post about the situation.
There has been no comment from the Saudi Arabia Overwatch World Cup team in regards to the scandal.
Aspire removed from Team USA
The Team USA Overwatch World Cup team announced the suspension of 21 year-old Luka "Aspire" Rolovic from the active roster. The removal comes in light of allegations of an underage relationship revealed on social media and to OWC officials. The posts allege that Rolovic began a relationship with a then-16 year-old girl that spiraled into a grooming situation.
The chain of events were corroborated by Overwatch Contenders player Becca "Aspen" Rukavina in a post to her Twitter account. She alleges the Vancouver Titans knew about the situation previously. This Overwatch World Cup scandal also potentially calls into question the Vancouver Titans management. This includes what they knew and the lack of a response from the franchise.
Rolovic has yet to respond to the allegations on social media or otherwise.
Update: LegendryOW provided a glib response on social media to OWC's statement.
Second update, 5:27 p.m.: The Vancouver Titans have released Aspire.
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