It seems that at least once a year the Call of Duty South Africa scene goes through a rough patch. A while back I broke the news on the mass influx of hate brought down on female gamers in the scene. It reached a point where rape threats were being thrown around in chat parties and the female gaming scene in SA was brought to its knees by the sheer level of toxicity in COD ZA. While those issues are still somewhat present in the local community, COD ZA still seems to be fighting to get rid of toxic, hateful, and homophobic players.
Players are openly expressing hate amongst each other with no shame at all. Unfortunately, these situations then creep onto social media where tournament organizers pick up on the issues and reconsider hosting events and involving players who are part of these incidents. Sad to say that while many players laugh at the hate being spread online, it is causing a rift in COD ZA and the entire community is getting a bad reputation.
While these issues have been present for a while now, this week has been particularly rough for players. One fairly new team by the name of Nixuh had one of their players named “Premium” reportedly enter a Discord server after a match against and go on a rant about another team. He went on to say he hopes the players get into a car accident and get hit by a bus. When called out on Twitter for the incident, he denied it completely even with video proof backing it up.
So i just got sent this after our league game vs @NixuhGG. Absolutely disgusting from from one of their players pic.twitter.com/Vaa6FqKs8m
— Little Drofdi (@DROFDER_) July 19, 2021
A video was sent to me of a previous incident where this same player reportedly called another COD ZA player a faggot during a match. You can watch it down below. The incident happens at around 40 seconds.
In a WhatsApp conversation, Premium continued to deny the incident adding that the Discord chat had other players present so there was no proof it was him. Twitter user @itsKhanivore who is the owner of Nixuh also defended the player’s actions while denying he had anything to do with it. He claims his team also comes under fire from other players and teams in the COD ZA scene but they choose to handle these incidents privately and not take to social media to expose anyone.
It was not until Pro Esports League, a local tournament organization, banned the entire Nixuh team that Premium admitted the hate speech was him. Up until this point, the player called out the other team publically for complaining about the video. He shamed them on Twitter saying they were snowflakes for being offended by the Discord incident.
Pro Esports League says they don’t support the actions of Nixuh and has since banned the team permanently from upcoming tournaments. Gamers Connect also followed by banning the team and players involved in the incidents. African Gaming has since suspended the team and banned Premium. Mettlestate also followed up with a 12-month ban against Premium.
Announcement on the recent events in #CODZA. pic.twitter.com/A7mqfk5yXk
— ACGL (@AfricanGaming) July 21, 2021
Nixuh, the team that Premium was part of released a statement this afternoon confirming the player’s dismissal. The team claims that they don’t accept this sort of behavior at all and they hope to help grow the COD ZA scene rather than bring it down. Imagine that!
Our Response. #SafeSpaces #LGBTQ+ #CODZA @ProEsportsLeagu @KeegZGTR pic.twitter.com/Z2WijHYEmB
— Nixuh (@NixuhGG) July 21, 2021
However, this issue stems from a long-running list of problems in COD ZA. The scene is littered with players who blatantly spread hate across all platforms. Thankfully, the local support has been incredible with fellow teams speaking out about the problems and organizations stepping back from players who think they are above the rest.
This latest incident proves that if you want to be part of a team and add that tag to your Twitter bio then you need to be respectful. If not, prepare for a world of pain as the decent COD ZA players are fed up with the bad batch causing problems. Don’t expect brands to support teams and tournaments to be held if this is what COD ZA stands for. The player in question has since terminated his team player Twitter account.
