How new UK esports org Fragging Friends are boosting women’s Valorant

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Fragging Friends (FRG) are a new UK-based esports organisation and community with a strong focus on women in esports. They have a Valorant women’s team, a development team for lower-ranked women players, and half of their admin team are women too.

Dom Sacco caught up with FRG owner, exar (aka Joey), and head of esports, nabi, to discuss how they have grown to more than 1,200 members since August 2024, what their community tournaments/events are like, and what their goals are.

Thanks for the interview, Exar. Please tell us about the org and why it was set up.

exar: Fragging Friends (FRG) is a UK-based esports organisation and community founded by myself. We started as a group of friends playing Valorant, which quickly grew into a diverse and inclusive community.

Over a short period of time, we have been able to expand our team into three different divisions.

Our Esports operation is led by Nabi and currently consists of two teams competing in Valorant Leagues (FRG Sirens and FRG Elite), and two academy teams.

The Community division is run by Pomy, which consists of a team of six admins that help with tournament organisation, growth and ensuring our community is a safe space.

We have a Partnership Manager (Kryptic) and Social Media Manager (Vee), that look after our commercial interests and promote our brand.

As a whole, we now function as a 13-person admin team that work together on a day-to-day basis. FRG are quickly establishing themselves as one of the leading Valorant servers and esports organisations in Europe.

With half of your admin team being women, how important is it for you to have this diversity? What are your thoughts on this topic?

nabi: There has always been a barrier of some sort for women to be included in the gaming space, whether it’s intimidation to speak in-game, hesitation to join esports communities or playing at a competitive level.

We take action by ensuring women and marginalised minorities are included in our community events, competitive teams and FRG staff. We have created a safe and supportive space that enables women to thrive in all parts of the gaming environment – going as far as creating an academy team for women as young as 16 years old where they are provided with coaching and guidance. It’s an opportunity that we didn’t see existing, which we have created ourself.

This essentially comes down to what FRG is all about and why it was created: change and adaptation to build a diverse environment for individuals who have shied away from esports.

What are your goals?

exar: FRG’s goal is to build the most inclusive and thriving esports community, where every player and community member feels welcomed and supported.

The support and feedback from our community has helped shape where we are today. We have taken this success and reinvested it into our esports teams, where we strive for continued growth.

Our vision is to become a household name in the esports industry where we are recognised for our inclusivity, competitive opportunities and vibrant community.

Please tell us about your teams, player rosters and their aims.

exar: Our first step into the esports scene was with our Valorant Game Changers team, FRG Sirens. This experience was challenging at first, but with the right foundation we managed to find a good balance between a competitive team and an environment for nurturing young talented players.

Growing from this, we expanded our esports operation, building our admin team to create a new structure within our organisation. This led to the creation of FRG Elite, who are currently competing in the Valorant DACH League and will be competing in future tournaments such as EVC and The Reynas.

In a short space of time, our teams have developed their skills with the support of our coaching staff in order to compete at a high level, and our aim is to continue on this trajectory and achieve even higher feats.

Some of our players are new to the scene with this being their first experience competing in Valorant. With that being said, we are very proud of the progress we have made as an organisation and that comes down to the hard work and commitment from our players in and out of the server.

With the success of our Game Changers roster, we took it upon ourselves to create two different academy rosters (FRG Academy and FRG Empress (women’s academy team) to help players develop and give them exposure to the competitive Valorant scene.

The rosters are:

FRG Elite

• Doxy – IGL/Team Captain from Czech Republic
• Refuse – Duelist from Germany
• Upfii – Sentinel from Germany
• Bxni – Smokes from Germany
• TBC

FRG Sirens

• Vee – IGL/Team Captain from Finland
• Wolfiee – Duelist from the UK
• Wisteria – Sentinel from Germany
• Strawberry – Initiator from the UK
• Vescuz – Initiator from Norway
• Sub: Lunie from the UK
• Sub: Cieula from The Netherlands

Is there an upcoming tournament that players can get involved in?

exar: We host community tournaments bi-weekly on the weekends, giving server members the opportunity to compete against each other in a friendly but competitive fashion. For special occasions like Halloween and Christmas, we organise larger tournaments with prize pools, such as our 2024 Festive Finale, which featured a £200 prize pool across two days, and included a dedicated caster and a freelance VCT EMEA observer, c0nnorgg.

We are working closely with a few UK universities collaborating on tournaments for our community and university students. Our next big tournament is in collaboration with the University of Surrey which will be a two-day tournament (date TBC), consisting of teams from the FRG community and teams from the Surrey eSports Society.

We are also happy to announce we have received our first batch of our FRG jerseys which are now being distributed to our teams and staff, and will soon be up on our website to be purchased by our community members.

We also recently held a 40-person Valentines-themed Valorant tournament, and a watch party for our main team, FRG Elite in the Project V qualifier [finishing third, just outside of the two main event qualification spots].

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

exar: FRG isn’t just an organisation; it’s a 1,200+ member community that continues to grow.

Our admin team is the heart of our community. We wouldn’t be here without them, each dedicating their free time to helping grow, provide a support system, answer queries and engage in a shared passion of gaming with the rest of the community.

We believe FRG Empress is the only academy team for women in the Valorant scene ran by an organisation, focusing on the growth of Platinum and Diamond players specifically.

More from Fragging Friends:

• More about Fragging Friends on their website here
• X: https://x.com/fraggingfriends
• Discord: Discord.gg/FraggingFriends
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fraggingfriends

Dom Sacco

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.