That’s the situation at Schalke:

• The soccer club Schalke had bought into the European professional league in LoL, the LEC, in 2016 and played in the league for years with moderate success. In 2021, however, they sold the place in the LEC to Switzerland because they needed money to cushion their relegation from the Bundesliga during the Corona pandemic.
• Despite many departures, Schalke managed to field a powerful team in 2022 that managed to finish as high as 2nd in the German Prime League playoffs. In the process, they finished off crowd favorite Eintracht Spandau.
• Schalke’s good finish in the league allowed them to qualify for the EU Masters. This is a kind of European Cup where the best teams in Europe compete against each other – except for the professional teams of the LEC.

Schalke suspends Jungler – without much explanation

This was now the decision of Schalke: On August 29, Schalke released a statement on Twitter (via twitter):

During the course of today, an incident occurred that has caused us to release Isma with immediate effect. We ask for your understanding that we cannot currently comment on the background.

Why was this problematic? Schalke is currently playing in the group stage of the EU Masters.

When a central core player is out, it’s hard for an LoL team to compensate, because the team trains and plays as a unit:

• There are substitute players in LoL, but it’s not like a soccer team, where there is a constant change.
• Usually five regular players play through every match of a – Season .
• In fact, they are only changed in the event of injuries, suspensions or drastic form crises in a current – Season – or if a player urgently needs a vacation.

Therefore, Schalke’s decision to suspend a Spier was viewed controversially. Precisely because Schalke initially did not comment at all on why they had suspended Isma.

What is a flame? In gamer-speak, the word “flame” refers to an irrelevant statement intended to insult or provoke others. Someone who “flames” particularly blatantly or frequently is known as a “flamer.” In gaming there are “tolerated forms” of flames among friends, which somehow belong to gaming. This is then a friendly teasing. Flames that are “not tolerated” include homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic statements or anything that concerns “real life”.

Jungler not at all in agreement with suspension – Only “very common flames”

This is how the player reacts: The youngster expressed his disagreement with Schalke’s decision to remove him from the team.

He said : He was suspended just 4 hours before the match against Gamesward. He confessed that he flamed a player named Nyro in a game of Solo-Q.

Isma said, “He shouldn’t have done that, but sometimes you would just give in to emotions and he would make sure it didn’t happen again.

The Jungler put what had happened into perspective: He had not flamed that badly at all, neither racist nor homophobic. It was “very common flaming”.

Still, he said, he disagreed with the decision: Because it was his first offense and now his teammates were being hit so hard. According to Isma, an apology would have been enough, after all, he had not been warned by Schalke before.

It’s a big disappointment for me. The EU Masters was what we achieved in the – Season . It’s incredibly frustrating to have put my teammates in such a situation.

Isma

Twitch streamer shows how the Schalke player flamed him

What was he doing? The player he was messing with in the solo Q is the Twitch streamer Nyro. He showed up in Isma’s tweet and posted 7 screenshots, parts of the chat history.

From the images, it appears that Isma used various insults:

• “Nyro, I spit on you, fat monkey.”
• “Gross, you’re fat in real life”.
• “You stream for 300 monkeys who watch you and are happy”.
• “Subhuman”[sbuhman].

“Untermensch” in particular singled out Nyro. That was “racist and anti-Semitic” – that was not “very common flaming.”

Here’s the rub with this story: In Nyro’s posting, it is immediately noticeable that only Isma’s insults can be seen in the chat, the word contributions of Nyro himself are missing.

Therefore, users on Twitter suspected that the screenshots certainly showed a false picture. Because Nyro is also well known as a flamer in LoL and it is assumed that he also used swear words so that Isma escalated so.

LoL players say however: Also with Isma it is by no means so that he has flamed here once and was punished for it immediately, but is otherwise always a model citizen. Isma is also said to enjoy a reputation as a flamer in solo Q.

As can be seen from tweets and Reddit posts, both players, Nyro and Isma, have a reputation as “flamers” on the server EUW. Apparently, the situation escalated when they clashed.

Schalke’s decision is the subject of controversy

How is this being discussed? It’s being discussed quite controversially.

There are some players, like the LoL pro Broxah, who fully side with Schalke and say that Isma’s flames were “racist”, that this is unacceptable and should be punished. One has high respect for Schalke for this decision.

Others say: Well, if you know Nyro and how he behaves, then this is already a “big loss” for Schalke. The whole team has been punished here. This is a slap in the faces of the Schalke players.

Anyway, it doesn’t look good for Schalke in the group stage now. They’ve lost 2 of their first 3 games. If that continues, that’s it for the – Season .

Schalke says: This is real life – things we say count

This is what Schalke said at the end: After the hullabaloo on Twitter, Schalke got around to issuing a detailed statement on the suspension after all.

They say Schalke is a soccer club. One knows that things are different in LoL than in soccer. An insult in LoL might have a different weight than in the world in which Schalke operates worldwide. Nevertheless, you judge everyone by the same standards and have always told everyone so:

We don’t stand for hate and toxic behavior. Everyone at Schalke – players, managers, employees, board members – is asked to internalize that. We have stated that as our mission.

Schalke

Schalke ends the message with the phrase: This is real life and the things we say count.

LoL is known for flaming on a regular basis:

14-year-old LoL player wins flame duel against dreaded Twitch streamer