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CS:GO team allegedly assaulted after tournament victory.

The Daily Dot

Reason Gaming’s female Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team travelled to the Electronic Sports World Cup Wednesday with high hopes for the French qualifier. The victor would be crowned the champions of France and given a slot in the main tournament.

Despite strong competition, the team beat all comers, emerging triumphant from a final that pitted them against the highly fancied Imaginary CS:GO Ladies. However, along with the prestige and prizes, the team got more than they had bargained for when tempers escalated and the team was assaulted by alleged associates of the defeated finalists.

The situation began immediately after their victory, according to Reason Gaming management. The all-French Imaginary Gaming were apparently upset that a team that fielded one British and one Swedish player, in addition to their three domestic players, had been crowned the “French” champions. ESWC rules, however, state that as long as three players are of the required nationality for a qualifier, then they are allowed to compete in that region.

Imaginary’s protests fell on deaf ears.

That's when one of Reason Gaming players, Sophia 'Kim.' Benfakir, allegedly received abusive and racist texts from Imaginary Gaming coach and former Clan Mystik player Aude "sarah" Prigent. A while later, Prigent allegedly sent another text stating that she was outside a party following the event. The players went to meet her. As they got closer to Prigent, a car pulled up and multiple female assailants exited the vehicle and began attacking the team. Four members of Reason Gaming were allegedly thrown to the floor, punched and kicked while the fifth, team captain Abi 'Abiii' Glover, managed to seek help. A passer-by joined in to help break up the fracas.

Following the assault, the perpetrators ran back to the vehicle and sped from the scene—however, not before someone snapped a photograph of the vehicle and its registration number.

In a statement, Heath said that his players had no serious injuries—"a few bumps and bruises, but for the most part they got off lightly"—and that he'd filed a full report with the Paris police, including a picture of the car's license plate.

"The fact that this has happened over a game is not the thing that disturbs me the most, it is that it was a racially motivated attack," Heath wrote. "Saying our team doesn't deserve to be called Champions of France because we have two players from outside France is no fault of our own, it is a rule of the tournament that we only need a majority of French players to compete.

"Then taking it as far as ambushing our players with a group that outnumbers them two to one with the aim of causing them harm.

"I can only hope that ESWC and other events take actions towards the players involved in this and the organisations that these players are part of cut all ties with players that condone such actions.”

Imaginary Gaming and Pringent did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The other side of the story

response by 'Sarah' from the other team in french :

She regrets her behavior but she's saying they were provoked. She says that 'LALITA' from Reason first had a snapchat of her middle finger and said it was aimed at 'Sarah' from Imaginary Gaming. After seeing that, 'Sarah' demanded explanations from 'LALITA' but was ignored. She then talked to 'KIM' who started to insult and provoke her by text/phone. When IMG team arrived at their hotel, team Reason met them in the hall while intoxicated and wanting to fight.

She posted this video of KIM provoking her by phone while showing two aggressive texts:
Video

some things KIM said on the phone : - "don't be afraid, come and we'll see."

"if you have balls, I take you 1 by 1"

"you're nobody so come and I will hit you in the face" ("je te défonce la gueule")

"I take your jaw and put it on the pavement"

"I show no mercy, we are terrorists so I fuck your race, shut the fuck up" (j'ai pas de pitié pour les gens, nous les gars on est des terroristes donc je te nique ta race, ferme ta gueule)

So according to her, they fought but were provoked and lost their cool.
 

Silky

Banned
Disgusting. As I said in the previous thread, these people should lose their sponsorships and be barred from any competitive CS:GO tournament.
 

Tagyhag

Member
It's a shame, there's always going to be sore losers in competitions but it should never be to this degree.

Should get lifetime bans.
 

Firestorm

Member
3 of 5 players being from the region is quickly becoming a standard. That team needs to get the hell over themselves. Hopefully they're found quickly and anyone linked to the attack is banned from play entirely. Physical violence and racism needs to stay far away from esports.
 

zeroyazi

Banned
Just curious, why was the other thread locked? Reading the 2nd thread and it looks like it contains the same content.
 

Silky

Banned
Just curious, why was the other thread locked? Reading the 2nd thread and it looks like it contains the same content.

People jumping the gun by not reading the OP, debating over the thread title and it's bait-y nature, bullshit comments from idiots saying "lol what will Sarkeesian think xD". Basically no feedback on the thread.
 

Joni

Member
It is saddening hooliganism also enters the world of electronic sports. I can only hope they get the same amount of punishments as regular hooligans, jailtime and bans from all professional e-sports venues.

The gaming community is also really getting that family-friendly angle of gaming out there nowadays. Good luck Jack Thompson isn't around anymore.
 

Nzyme32

Member
That's fairly ridiculous, but good that they are relatively ok. As for the rules of the competition, that really isn't the way to deal with the situation obviously.
 

danwarb

Member
When there's no one in a group to say calm the fuck down and be reasonable.


The gaming community includes anyone who plays games and talks about them.
 
There seems to be an element of premeditation (texting to lure someone to an ambush) rather than just fury at losing to a team they felt wasn't fully representative.
 

Rubius

Member
It's shitty really I hope the defeated team get banned from the event if it was not simply the team leader choice. You cant assault the winning team because you are mad. Even more because they are from an another country. I know that France xenophobia is pretty high, but still.
 

Rubius

Member
Crazy stuff. Hope they make a movie out of this.

Not that crazy. Happen all the time in sport teams all over the country. Hell, you see it live on TV pretty much every night on Hockey. A guy get frustrated, the team is losing, and the guy is acting cocky so he push him into the wall and cause cerebral damage.
Sport create high level of adrenaline and make you more competitive, so it's normal that people go over the line and become violent. It's a system of us vs them, and if you win, you get fame and money. It's micro xenophobia toward other teams which is encouraged really. They suck, we rule. This create a feeling of "How dare they win" because you are told all the time that YOU are the best.

Mix that with violent tendency and you have a bad cocktail for the sport scene. I doubt the 5 people from the team were in it. It was probably the Team captain and some other person and the friends of the captain.
 

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
Christ people, I know humans are competitive by nature but fuck, it's Counter Strike.

Not that any other competition is worth assaulting people over.
 

outsida

Member
Maybe videogames are serious business after all. People are catching ass whippings now after tournaments? Damn.
 

MarionCB

Member
To be frank, it basically sounds like the environment of a CS online match moved to real life. Last time I played, it took 30 seconds into the match before I was called a "fucking ****", by a teammate no less, and that was just the start. This all seems sad and childish like that, though potentially much more serious. I hope there are consequences to come for the behaviour here.
 
Updated the OP. Doesn't excuse the actions of course but sheds a bit more light on the situation. Bad all around. For those who don't follow I watch a lot of CS:GO tournaments and most of toxicity from the online community is not present at high levels of competition.
 

DrunkDan

Member
Christ, on that Reddit link one of the comments says 'that's why women should be making sandwiches and not throwing frags'.

Seems some people still can't get out of the stone ages.

Horrible story though, behaviour on both sides is so childish it's almost unbelievable. Real high school shit.
 

Rubius

Member
I love how on her facebook page she describes herself as "Sportsperson".

Well Esport is still a sport. And you can do outside sport and still do esport. Most Esport pros have to train every day by running because the brain and reflexes do much better in a fit body.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Christ, on that Reddit link one of the comments says 'that's why women should be making sandwiches and not throwing frags'.

Seems some people still can't get out of the stone ages.

Horrible story though, behaviour on both sides is so childish it's almost unbelievable. Real high school shit.
I know it's Reddit and all, but I'm pretty sure it's a troll.
 
I like how they wanted to get even...
By bring two to one.
Fucking cowardly as hell, atleast be one to one.


Half joking, this whole thing is a mess.
 
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