The European Team Fortress 2 League and its sponsors STN-Trading and scrap.tf distance themselves from the behavior of two premiership players, Pred and catgirl, on the social media platform Twitter. The aforementioned individuals are in no way representatives of our league, its staff or its community. We strictly condemn any kind of racism, sexism or intolerance towards people of different cultures, religions, countries, genders or sexual orientation. Our entire staff is shocked by the abuse that one of our most respected and loved members of this community had to suffer and feels nothing but compassion for uberchain.

Like everyone else we believe it is our duty to take action in the matter. However, it is important to consider that neither Pred or catgirl, as insulting and disgusting as their behavior was, have broken any match or forum rules. The offence in question happened on a third party service without an affiliation to ETF2L or the TF2 community. Unlike professional esport leagues we do not have any kind of contract with our teams and players that would have been broken. The expectation of some to remove these players from the league altogether cannot be met.

That said: premiership players, while not being representatives of the league, often function as role models for beginners and younger players. We cannot and will not let this matter simply slide. We want to raise everyone’s awareness of toxic behavior inside our small community and call out the people responsible for creating an unpleasant environment.

Behaving in such a way will not be rewarded.

Thus, as a result of their actions, catgirl will not be eligible to nominate or be nominated for the Season 30 sponsored by STN-Trading & scrap.tf award polls.

We will also be issuing the following bans:

catgirl will be banned from all ETF2L competitions for 2 months.

Pred will be banned from all ETF2L competitions until the end of the year.

Furthermore, the bin– who Pred is a leader for and hence is a representative of the team – will only be awarded 50% of their prize money for season 30. The other half of €175 in total will be donated to a charity of uberchain‘s choice which supports victims of sexual harassment and abuse. Our sponsors as well as uberchain have welcomed the idea of sending a message this way. We are aware that this is only a small gesture, but a signal like this can go a long way.

Reconsidering our approach

The events of this week will have us relook at our rules and policies. In the past some violations of our rules regarding verbal abuse and harassment have not been followed up on thoroughly. We will question ourselves, our rules and the punishment for violations of those for the future. At the time of this post being published there are already plans to huddle up with other community websites and services in order to work out a community-wide report system.

Toxicity and discrimination have no place in our league and our community!

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