Motif Esports Disbands and Players Leave the Team
The UK-based esports organisation Motif Esports just lost their entire VCT Game Changers team after players complained about harassment and racism from the organisation’s founder. Two members of the ex-MOTIF Violet came forward with their statements on Twitter, shedding some light into the dysfunctional environment within the organisation.
The women’s Valorant team left Motif Esports along with their coach and founded a new VCT Game Changers team called Karma. MOTIF Violet placed within the top 24 teams in the recent VCT Game Changers EMEA and finished with some pretty good stats.
“Harassment, Lack of Human Decency, and Racism”
On paper, this all-female Valorant squad was having a great time in the Valorant Champions Tour EMEA Game Changers. The team scored 4 wins and 2 losses in the EMEA Series 1 and finished in the top 24 teams. With 80 teams competing in this event, these were some good results for the MOTIF Violet team.
However, we now discover all the difficulties the team had to endure during those couple of weeks while in the organisation.
RattieRebecca, one of the members of the team, came forward on Twitter and shared her experience with the organisation’s founder @Sirjawsyt.
Rebecca explains how the “issues that made me feel trapped and being taken control of” caused an immense amount of stress. The team couldn’t properly train as the organisation was “invading our team privacy and not letting us have any private chat” at every step along the way.
VIOLET leaving @MotifEsports due to harassment, lack of human decency, racism.
Read: https://t.co/gaPSFRgbFl
— 𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚌𝚊 🍓✧ ˚ (@RattieRebecca) February 8, 2022
Rebecca further added how the organisation didn’t even know the official tournament schedule, saying:
“Although they’ve been invested in our training so much, on the other hand they did not even know when we had official tournaments. We have been in the middle of the VCT match and they randomly tagged us, telling us to go play rankeds with them.”
This already sounds like a nightmare situation for any Valorant esports team to be in, but it gets worse.
Joanne’s Statement
The issues we covered in Rebecca’s posts were pretty horrible, but that’s not the end of it. In her TwitLonger post, Joanne says how she was sexually harassed by the organisation’s founder.
“In my time at Motif, I was sexually harassed by the org founder. It was “jokes” for him, but it wasn’t for me and wouldn’t be for anyone else either (I saw it happen to many girls with my own eyes).”
He was also calling the players “boosted” and was unprofessional in many other ways.
“I was constantly guilt tripped because I wouldn’t duo queue with him, I got sent unprofessional messages about other players etc.”
Leaving Motif Esports
Read: https://t.co/aDeECtjoaw
— joanne (@joanne_x8) February 8, 2022
The Fallout
After the allegations came to light and the ex-MOTIF Violet decided to leave the organisation, Motif Esports officially disbanded and the founder, Jaws, was no longer in the picture.
His Twitter profile is no longer public, and the organisation also deleted their Twitter account. This scandal means they most certainly won’t be leading any other esports teams in the future, and they definitely shouldn’t.
However, the fact that most of the heat landed on the organisation’s founder, Jaws, raises some suspicions. It’s highly unlikely that the rest of the organisation simply had no clue about what was going on.
We’re not sure if there will be any further investigations into the matter, but if there are, we’ll make sure to keep you updated.
A Fresh Start
Like we mentioned in the beginning, the team and their coach have escaped the hell that was Motif Esports and rebranded into Karma Valorant.
This same team will continue competing in VCT Game Changers. The fact they finished in the top 24 in EMEA Game Changers Series 1 despite the work environment they were in is already commendable.
Without Motif Esports holding them back, they can only go further. The team now gets a fresh start with Karma.
We’re looking forward to seeing them compete in future VCT Game Changers tournaments.
