Swedish League of Legends National League, the Svenska Onlineligan (SOL), is investigating a racist incident in scrims reported by a player from a UK team.
Brod n Friends’ UK/Jamaican jungler Trizzy posted a thread on X calling out Division 3 team Nox Gaming (not to be confused with disbanded UK team Obnoxious Gaming aka Nox, or events company Nox Lumina) after scrimming them.
His screenshots show that the Swedish team had only banned black League of Legends in-game characters in two scrims against UK team Brod n Friends (who compete in the UKEL).
Trizzy also called out the individual members of Nox Gaming below, and showed one message he received from Nox Gaming co-founder Wezze, which read: “Hey Trizzy, I wanted to reach out to you directly and apologise for the bans during yesterday’s scrim block. It was in no means meant towards you but it was incredibly unnecessary and immature.
“What happened was that our coach was mad at us for not ending game one cleanly and wanted to deny us our bans, we mutually agreed on banning every champion of colour ‘for fun’ and to ease tensions in the team after the loss.
“Even so, it was of course not okay, I just wanted to let you know it was not aimed at you or anyone else for that matter and offer my sincere apologies. Best of luck in your playoffs.”
One of the members of Nox Gaming, Woldjo, responded publicly to Trizzy, claiming he wasn’t in the draft, before asking for his name to be removed.
Update: Woldjo told Esports News UK he was not a member of Nox, but filled in to help them because they needed a jungler.
Svenska Onlineligan, a not-for-profit tournament operator and one of the LoL National Leagues partners announced for Northern Europe last year, issued a statement following the incident.
“A situation has been brought to our attention pertaining a team who has actively competed in season 8 of SOL, displaying racial discrimination whilst practicing versus a team from another national league,” the league said.
“The matter is being brought forth to our league operations team and any sanctions will be announced once the investigation has been concluded.
“No discrimination will be tolerated inside of the SOL esports ecosystem.”
The UKEL also added a statement on the matter:
Nox Gaming also published a statement, saying they are shutting down their esports division and releasing their players and staff, as well as co-founder Wezze.
“We want to express our sincere apologies to anyone who has been affected by the actions of individuals within our esports division. Racism has no place in our organisation or in the gaming community as a whole.”
Nox Gaming
“At Nox, we take allegations of discrimination extremely seriously,” the org said. “We have zero tolerance for any form of racism or bigotry within our organisation. Upon learning of these allegations, we immediately launched an internal investigation and took appropriate action.
“We want to express our sincere apologies to anyone who has been affected by the actions of individuals within our esports division. Racism has no place in our organisation or in the gaming community as a whole. We remain committed to fostering an environment where everyone feels safe, valued and respected.”
They also reiterated Woldjo’s comments, saying he was ‘a last minute roster addition and only played our last two official games, he was not present during the draft of the scrim games and is not at fault’.
The news comes as Brod n Friends won the lower bracket UKEL 4Nations Division 2 final this evening, against Team Vertex.
They will now play Verdant in the grand final on May 10th from 7pm BST.
Related article: Gov from Brod n Friends on playing at Insomnia, and how UK LoL esports today is all about friendship, piss-taking and having a good time
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.
