Update: EA has issued sanctions against the players outed in the Twitter thread for hate speech.
EA made a penalty announcement on June 24th 2022.
Vert, Preesur, Gaav, HCraig, YKSeven, Rking, Robbie, Max Smulders, Skillzy, Txmls- and xKayleszn- were disqualified from all FIFA 22 Global Series competition and any future events scheduled beyond this season for hate speech.
The FIFA 22 Global Series Code of Conduct violation for which the players have been disqualified is as follows: “Harassing, threatening, bullying, engaging in hate speech, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, including making personal attacks or statements about race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc.”
Original article: The FIFA esports scene has expressed its disgust at racist comments found and published by UK-based streamer Lewis Maynard, aka LAMaynard.
He published a Twitter thread earlier this week exposing racism in the FIFA scene and listing several players and community members who have engaged in racist behaviour, both publicly and privately.
LAMaynard himself has suffered racist abuse in his Twitch chat from a fake account, as detailed in his Twitter thread below. The streamer – who has a combined 20,000+ followers across multiple platforms – found out who was behind the profile and has investigated the situation further to expose several others in the community.
Content warning – multiple accounts of extreme racism, racial slurs and abuse:
Lewis named several community members in the thread plus their racist comments. They include the likes of @Vert7_ (Vert), @xkaylebrink (xKayleszn-), @zgaaav_ (Gaav), @preezur (Preesur), @hcrxig (HCraig), @ykseven_ (YKSeven), @xTomLs_ (Txmls), @RobbieWilsonn_ (Robbie), @rutgerkalmeijer, @msmulderss (Max Smulders) and @joshskillzy (Skillzy).
Lewis added: “There seemed to be a common theme going round of people talking about [quotes being taken out of] context, like it matters. There’s more but I’m done going through everything to be honest.
“More needs to be done with regards to account verification @Twitch, racism online, in football and in life to be honest. All I can do for now is try help rid some of this nonsense in the community. Hopefully the right actions can be taken.”
LAMaynard
Some of the community members called out have since deleted their Twitter profiles or made them private.
Some have published apologies on social media, including Max Smulders, Preezur, xTomLs and Joshskillzy (whose mother attempted to defend him in a now-deleted post saying he responded inappropriately after receiving death threats).
On the alleged death threats, Esports News UK understands Joshskillzy initially responded to abuse from Preezur, and the apparent death threats came after Lewis published the racist tweets, not before.
UK esports organisation LDN UTD posted this update after removing one of the exposed players, Robbie ‘RobbieWilsonn_’ Wilson, from their team.
LDN UTD also have their UTD Against Racism initiative, which has seen them team up with Leyton Orient FC and the Rio Ferdinand Foundation in the past.
Dutch organisation Bundled have not yet commented on the matter.
Pro players and other members of the community commented on the situation. We’ve rounded up a few of the comments here:
UK FIFA player Harry Hesketh, who retired from competitive play after receiving an EA ban for making comments about another player’s mum, said: “Horrible bastards, every single one of them, I wonder if racism will get treated the same as celebrating against a 14-year-old this time.”
In March 2021, FIFA game publisher EA said it had banned more than 9,000 accounts due to racist and inappropriate content. EA banned a FIFA player for life after he sent racist messages to former footballer Ian Wright after losing a FIFA game with a virtual version of the player, before proceeding to send him racist messages on Instagram. EA previously vowed to do more to tackle racist content in its FIFA/football games.
Esports News UK has reached out to FIFA, EA and Twitch for comment and will update this article if/when we hear back.
Related article: EA Sports FC and EA’s departure from FIFA
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
