SINGAPORE – A player from Singapore-based professional e-sports team Paper Rex has apologised after pointing his middle finger at an opponent team shortly after Paper Rex eliminated it from a competition in Spain.
Mr Ilya Petrov, 22, a Russian who is better known by his in-game name “something”, is one of five players in Paper Rex competing in the Valorant Champions Tour 2024: Masters Madrid.
The competition is the first major tournament of the year for the five versus five first-person shooter game Valorant. Held from March 14 to 24, it features eight teams and a US$500,000 (S$669,000) prize pool.
Paper Rex was up against Spanish rival Team Heretics in the second round on March 18. The Singapore team had just won the elimination match for a 2-1 victory when Mr Petrov made the gesture.
Screenshots of the incident later circulated within the gaming community, drawing both support and ire from Valorant fans.
During a press conference held shortly after the match, Mr Petrov apologised.
He said: “I want to say sorry to every fan... because I’m a professional player, I cannot do that, I cannot put my finger middle (sic) to the opponents. It’s my bad, sorry.”
He also posted an apology on his account @smthlikeyou11 on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He wrote: “I just want to apologise about the photo that everyone’s probably seen, my emotions got the better of me between all the back and forth with (Team Heretics), this really isn’t who I am and thinking back I can’t believe I reacted this way. Once again I’m sorry.”
Paper Rex has six players on its active roster including Mr Petrov. The others are three Indonesians, a Malaysian and a Singaporean who was moved to a substitute role after being called up for national service.
Paper Rex, formed in 2020, uses the Dreamcore Dream Centre in Bartley to house its training centre and management staff.
One of the most prolific professional Valorant teams in the world, it placed second in the 2023 Valorant Champions tournament held in Los Angeles to take home US$400,000.
Its main sponsor is beverage company YOU C1000. Five other sponsors are gaming device and accessory brands HyperX, Dreamcore, Zowie, Secretlab and Pulsar.
The Straits Times has contacted Paper Rex for comment.
The matches between Paper Rex and Team Heretics had been highly charged, with both sides shouting and taunting each other inside the game and in person.
Paper Rex won the first match but Team Heretics forced a tiebreak by taking the second.
Shortly after the victory in the second match, Team Heretics’ coach Neil Finlay, 33, was seen taunting another Paper Rex player by shouting at him as the two teams left the stage.
Mr Finlay acknowledged the incident on his account @neilzinho on X, saying he was carried away.
“There was a lot of trash talking all game, I got carried away and I’ll take the humbling,” he said.
“Nothing personal to (Paper Rex), they’re a great team and deserved to win.”
Mr Finlay later posted a picture of himself with the Paper Rex player, wishing him the best of luck.
Paper Rex will take on American team Sentinels on March 23 for a spot in the grand final.
ST has contacted US-based Riot Games, which owns Valorant, for comment.
Previously, Valorant players from Singapore were in the news after they were suspended for match-fixing in 2021. Two of them were later charged and convicted. One was jailed for four months while the other was sentenced to reformative training.
