Motif Esports has disbanded after two members of its all-female VALORANT team, Motif Violet, claimed today to have experienced racism and sexual harassment while playing under the organization in VCT Game Changers.
Joanne, the former captain of Motif Violet, shared a TwitLonger today explaining her departure from the organization, citing the toxic environment created within the org, including alleged sexual harassment from the organization’s founder Jack “JawsYT.”
Joanne’s allegations were later supported by her teammate, Barbora “Rebecca” Řezáčová, who referred to multiple instances of racism in her own post.
“MotifEsports has officially disbanded due to this incident,” a representative of the team told Dot Esports. “The Founder ‘Jaws’ is no longer in any operations of building a team or managing an ORG and will never again in the future.”
In her TwitLonger, Joanne said she joined Motif Esports to create a female VALORANT team but later left the organization due to issues caused by the org’s founder.
“In my time at Motif, I was sexually harassed by the org founder,” Joanne said. “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). Also telling one of your players that she is ‘boosted’ to one of her teammates and 1 hour before a big VCT game isn’t the most professional.”
Joanne’s statement was followed by another testimony from her teammate, Rebecca, who also shared her experience with the team via Twitter.
In her TwitLonger, Rebecca described experiences that made her feel “trapped,” including moments before the start of VCT Game Changers EMEA, where the players were met with contempt and mockery instead of receiving words of encouragement. “It was not just [them saying] boosted, but MANY other things that leave taste of disgust in my mouth,” Rebecca said.
With the majority of the organization being from the U.K., Rebecca said there was “a lot of racism towards non-UK players,” including Czech players being mocked for their foreign accent. One Turkish player, “Mercy,” in particular had to deal with “targeted racism towards her,” according to Rebecca. And despite some of the harassers apologizing to the Turkish player, the racist remarks continued, Rebecca said.
“[Mercy] has never felt comfortable in the organization itself again,” Rebecca said in her TwitLonger. “Especially because we were not allowed to have any kind of personal team space, she was basically forced to stay on one place with the same people who she knew hated her.”
Rebecca said the players were promised certain issues would be fixed, but the damage was already done. The “unpleasant” experience the team had with the organization and the founder left the players and their coach with no other choice but to leave.
Since Rebecca and Joanne’s stories have been shared online, Motif Esports’ Twitter page has been deleted and the personal profile of the founder has been set to private.
“I’m glad to have left with all 4 of my girls and my coach,” Joanne said. “I feel happy and relieved to be out of that toxic environment already.”
