The Atlanta Reign told fans earlier today that Daniel “dafran” Francesca would be coming back to the team as a content creator. The response on social media was almost entirely negative, with many fans pointing to his past as a reason to keep him out of the spotlight.
Now, the former Overwatch League player has said that the Reign has reversed the contract signing and he will not come on as a streamer anymore. This is likely due to the fact that the Reign received a ton of backlash when the announcement dropped, but nothing has been confirmed by the Reign yet. The only indication that the signing was reversed is a tweet from the creator himself.
Dot Esports has reached out to the Reign to confirm dafran’s statement and has not received a response at time of writing. The Reign’s Twitter page still has his announcement up and there has been no communication from the team since the tweet was posted.
Fans pointed to dafran’s past as a reason not to sign him to the team. Most of the criticism came from a point in time when he accused Cleo Hernandez of fabricating her sexual assault accusation against Jay “sinatraa” Won. He has since apologized, but it is clear that fans are not ready for his return to the spotlight.
After the announcement was made, fans flocked to social media to express their displeasure, and a glance through the replies shows that many people were upset over the signing. It was quite rare to find someone in the comments or quote retweets who was happy about the situation.
For now, fans can rest assured that the deal won’t go through if what dafran is saying is true, but the damage to the reputation of the team is likely already done.
Update Oct. 5 4:30pm CT: The Reign has now confirmed that it has reversed its decision to sign dafran.
