Former Spirit fe and Permitta W player Justina ‘Tynka’ Ducká has shared a post on X showing a Discord message from Tradeit confirming that she has been banned from participating in future Tradeit events. The message follows the fallout of a controversy which saw her and her team suddenly blocked from streaming their in-game POVs.
The fallout comes off the back of the Tradeit League FE Masters #7, in which Tynka intended to compete as a stand-in for Akuma alongside former Na’Vi Javelins stars Angelika ‘Angelka’ Kozłowska and Martyna ‘LETi’ Owsik.
Having agreed to stream their POVs with admins the week before, their permissions to do so were reportedly suddenly withdrawn before the event. Tynka added that, when the team subsequently asked to withdraw, and then were allegedly threatened being blacklisted from further events. The roster did subsequently default their lower-bracket contest. Despite this, Esports News UK understands that only Tynka is banned at present.
The message from the Tradeit representative confirms a ban from participating in future events before adding, “Public exposure attempts (over a decision made that I was in my right to make as TO, which made 0 affect to your quality or ability of playing in the tournament) filled with misinformation, which lead to private and public harassment of Tradeit & Co-Working FEM teams, was a severe line crossed and cannot go unaddressed.”
Esports News UK has reached out to both parties for comment.
Tradeit and Women’s Counter-Strike
Tradeit have hosted UK events both online and offline, as well as sponsoring EPIC.LAN 41, but it is female CS where Tradeit has been most predominant. The site’s Tradeit League FE Masters have attracted the biggest names in CS Counter-Strike, including Imperial fe, BIG Equipa, Na’Vi Javelins, and NiP Impact.
On its website, Tradeit claims the following relationship with female CS:
“At Tradeit, we are dedicated to making gaming inclusive for everyone. We organise special Counter-Strike tournaments just for women, giving them a chance to show their skills in a professional setting. We aim to help female gamers grow and succeed and make the Counter-Strike community more inclusive. We want to inspire the next generation of female esports stars.”
Yet following the fallout of both the POV controversy and Tynka’s subsequent ban, some took to X to share scepticism about Tradeit’s commitment to the female scene. Amongst them, British former EK Violet player Jodie ‘Jodiee’ Billington, who accused Tradeit of “running poor quality tournaments, not fixing it and censoring and banning women speaking out about it.” Adding, “You don’t care about the women’s scene. You just want to pretend and tick your inclusivity box.”
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
