Scandal with Egor 19teen Lexyutinwhich forZe fined in early April for insults in matchmaking, caused a lot of controversy in the Russian-speaking community. Some fans and opinion leaders have wondered if players can be punished for harsh statements on their own streams and in ranked matches. In Dota 2, such scandals and debates began to occur more often, but the community did not come to a single decision. Cybersport.ru studied how the behavior of players in sports is regulated, and also learned from representatives of clubs from the CIS, how they build communication with e-sportsmen and what restrictions they set for them.
Football Ethics – Suspensions for Like, Racism and Sex
There are many scandals in the sport, but they are monitored, regulated and punished. For examples, we turn to football, where disciplinary committees and championship leaders monitor not only the behavior of players in matches, but also their actions outside the stadiums. International organizations, such as UEFA, can apply sanctions both to an individual player, and to the entire club or even the country. Due to supervision from above, teams cannot close their eyes to one or another player’s misconduct or make excuses with phrases of the type: “We will conduct an explanatory conversation”.
The football player must comply with all points of the personal contract, the requirements of the national ethics committee or the football federation, as well as the rules of international organizations – FIFA and UEFA. Anyone can be punished for violating ethical standards, regardless of external factors that prompted the player to this or that act. Punishment does not bypass star players: for example, Cristiano Ronaldo for celebrating a goal scored at Atlético, during which he pointed to his groin, got a fine in the amount of € 20 thousand
Ronaldo repeated the gesture of Simeone after the victory Tough response from Cristiano: https: //t.co/ohMCJJhhYQ pic.twitter.com/btGQkgZqin
– Championship (@championat) March 12, 2019
Naturally, any criticisms of judges or rivals are punished. For criticizing the arbitrators suspended for several months CSKA president Evgeny Giner, and for contempt to the opposing team – midfielder Alan Dzagoev, who, along with the fans, sang obscene chants.
A sufficient number of controversial situations occur outside of football fields. For example, striker Pavel Pogrebnyak was disqualified and received a fine of ₽250 thousand for speaking out in an interview where he called “ridiculous” the fact that he was playing a black man in the Russian national team. The ethics committee saw nothing funny about this and counted Pogrebnyak’s words are a direct violation of the RPL Code.
“There are situations when we do not punish, but simply issue warnings, but more often players are removed from the game.”
However, the most meticulous social networks of football players are monitored by the clubs themselves. The reason for this is not only possible sanctions by international federations, but also multimillion-dollar sponsorship contracts that cannot be lost. Amounts received by large football clubs from technical sponsors (Puma, adidas, Nike) range from € 10 million to € 100 million per year. And besides them, there are also title sponsors and other partnerships. Clubs do not intend to lose favorable conditions due to excessive expressiveness and intemperance of players. The concept of “harming the image of the club” can include not only frank statements, but even inappropriate likes. Midfielder PSG Adrien Rabiot removed for two weeks because he liked the post of Patrice Evra, who rejoiced in the victory over the Paris team.
Too violent parties, addictions to illegal substances and alcohol, as well as indiscriminate sexual relations often entail sanctions from the club. Matteo Voltolini, the goalkeeper of the Italian Regina, was suspended from games and training for a video leaked to the Internet, in which the goalkeeper has sex in the toilet of a nightclub.
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Football has changed a lot over the last couple of decades: the crazy tricks that the Italian and English ultras have arranged are getting smaller, and the players themselves no longer jump from two feet into the fans, as Eric Cantona did in 1995. The built-up system of rules and prohibitions has borne fruit. Andrei Sozin, member of the ethics committee of the Russian Football Union, notes that the athletes who were ever punished for violating ethical standards no longer allowed themselves to cross the line.
“Only once in my practice was it when one person was called twice – it was Giner with his statements about the judges. In other cases, if a person was punished for violations of ethical standards, I have never seen him repeat such mistakes. ”
The introduction of restrictions and ethical rules did not make the sports community sterile and bland. In football, there are enough emotional and sharp-tongued players and coaches like Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Jose Mourinho. Thrashtock or picks also remained, but now exist in the framework of decency. You can criticize an opponent or “stab” another club in front of a derby without direct insults and the transition to nationality, race or the theme of the family. Unfortunately, in e-sports the latter is still a powerful argument in numerous in-game confrontations.
How is mom doing? – eSports ethics
From the point of view of ethical norms and rules, e-sports is heterogeneous. Riot Games and Blizzard are trying to follow the sports model. Both companies have introduced tough codes for both their games (Overwatch, League of Legends), and for official tournaments on them. Moreover, the requirements that the company presented to the players, in many aspects, are even tougher than in sports. Overwatch League eSports forbidden to use any obscene gestures and statements, publicly discuss the topic of politics or talk about other competitive disciplines. Blizzard also obliged players to monitor their own audiences and prevent toxic behavior in them. Organizers are checking League past game – you can get a disqualification and a fine not only for boosting or selling accounts, but also for toxic behavior in matchmaking.
Not all professional players were able to quickly adapt to such strict ethical requirements. In the first two seasons of the Overwatch League, there were more than a dozen diverse scandals related to both fans and e-sportsmen. Blizzard monitored player behavior in official matches and in the media field. For example, Felix xQc Lengiel received a disqualification for statements on the stream, and with DreamKazper they broke the contract after his intimate correspondence with a minor fan was merged into the network.
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Ethical standards and requirements for player behavior spelled out and League of Legends tournaments. It even has a paragraph with requirements for appearance. However, the main attention is paid to expressions and behavior: any insults, bullying and other manifestations of disrespect are prohibited.
“Team members are prohibited from insulting the honor and dignity of a country, individual or group of persons through contemptuous, discriminatory or degrading words, expressions or actions indicating race, color, nationality, state and social origin, language, religion, political or other views, financial and other status, origin, sexual orientation and other personal characteristics, ”- the Kontinental League regulation of the 2023 season.
However, the presence of rules does not mean that the system will work without failures. In the Continental League in 2019 there was a controversial incident when the team Rox made a warning for disrespect for the female composition Vaevictis eSports. The team’s misconduct, according to the administration, was that players banned five support at the draft stage – a rather rare situation for League of Legends, but in this case it is easy to explain, since they were the signature characters of the girls. In an official decree, the league administration referred specifically to clause 10.2.4, which we cited above. The community, including the English-speaking, negatively evaluated the decision of Riot Games.
Ban supports at your own risk pic.twitter.com/Vpv5fUW9ee
– RAVAGEZZZ? (@RAVAGEZZZ) February 21, 2019
Whereas in some disciplines publishers have already introduced strict rules, in others the behavior of players, especially outside tournament matches, is practically not regulated. Over the past couple of years, in Dota 2, there have been several large scandals related to the statements of professionals – MinD_ContRoL, Kuku and Ceb. After each such incident, there was a debate in the community about the permissibility of insults in matchmaking and the role of Valve in regulating the scene. However, there was no reaction from the developers of Dota 2, so similar stories began to be repeated. The situation with forZe and 19teen showed that in the absence of control and a clear set of rules by Valve, the only body that can control the behavior of e-sportsmen is their club.
But are organizations interested in this kind of work? Really loud are only a few conflicts in matchmaking, which were promoted on reddit or in the media. Would 19teen be punished if he hadn’t played in the same match with streamers that gave impetus to the proceedings? We turned to eSports organizations from the CIS – Virtus.pro, Hellraisers and Gambit esports, – to find out if they control the behavior of players outside the stage.
Learn the contract, eSportsman
In many eSports organizations, contracts stipulate clauses that govern the behavior of media players. For example, CEO of Virtus.pro Sergey Glamazda said that the club also gives e-sportsmen recommendations on maintaining social networks.
“Among the prohibited topics, for example, are manifestations of racism, justification of terrorism, insulting the feelings of believers, condemnation of sexual minorities, and much more.”
In case of violation of the rules, sanctions can be applied to the players, at the first stage – an explanatory conversation. CEO SEO Aleksey Slabukhin noted that his club had not had any reason to punish players for a long time, and if we consider a hypothetical situation, then potential sanctions will depend on the seriousness of the misconduct of the esportsman.
“If he insulted a player in matchmaking and it was, let’s say,“ not very tough ”, then, of course, he will be fined, a conversation will be held with him, and he will be on a“ trial period ”. If he offends very seriously, for example, affects his parents or shows racism, then there will be very serious consequences, and there can be any solution. ”
Responsible players
All three clubs emphasized that their players, even without contracts and a whip method, realize how important it is to comply with ethical standards. For example, Gambit pointed out that it is beneficial for cybersportsmen to maintain a good image on streams so that Twitch does not have any complaints about them.
“Everyone probably knows how hard Twitch reacts to behavior that goes beyond the rules of the site. The athletes themselves are interested in having a good story on Twitch and no bans, because for many of them it’s a source of income along with prize money and salary. ”
According to CEO Alexei Slabukhin, the right approach is when the player himself watches his performances in the media field. But Glamazda noted that Virtus.pro members realize that they are media personalities with thousands of followers, and therefore also try to monitor their image. However, the club still conducts explanatory conversations with e-sportsmen.
“For our part, we help our players to remain within the framework of correct behavior, regularly reminding them of the norms and responsibilities that they bear, representing the best e-sports club in the country. There wasn’t such that they didn’t listen to us. ”
Slabukhin said that he only twice had such conversations with the players. Gambit noted that they do not use such methods.
“We don’t sit in the study or in the living room at the bootcamp and do not communicate on this topic, but, of course, the work is based on the principles of mutual understanding of our goals, respect for the rules of decency and on their observance.”
After the conflict with 19teen, there were rumors in the community that sanctions from forZe followed only after Lukoil, the club’s sponsor, drew attention to the incident from prompts of third parties. Glamazda noted that Virtus.pro partners also monitor the organization, both on the professional stage and in the media space. At the same time, he said that with sponsors, VP did not have any difficulties due to the behavior of the players. Alexey Slabukhin said that he does not closely monitor the behavior of HR participants in the media field.
“Sometimes friends or guys from staff may send me a tweet, but usually it’s something insignificant. I rarely watch content only if it’s something important. ”
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One of the reasons why such stories still happen in professional Dota 2 is that such incidents often do not have negative consequences for the clubs themselves – they are not fined by the game publisher or sponsors. It is possible that many brands that become partners of e-sports organizations are not always ready or do not know where and how to track the activity of players wearing their logos on t-shirts.
In mid-April, Pampers after PepsiCo refused to cooperate with the leader Regina Todorenko because of one resonant statement in an interview. Direct insults to relatives and other rudeness from the side of the doters are perhaps no less compelling reason for the brand to think about the advisability of further partnership with the club. If e-sports as an industry plans to reach the level of the most popular sports and have the same long-term multi-million dollar contracts with conditional adidas, then it is time to comply with all the standards of the “major league” – and for a start, you can trim the “long languages”.
