EA Bans Pro FIFA Player Kurt0411 “From Playing Our Games and Accessing Our Services” Due to “Abusive and Threatening Messages”

Spencer Baculi |

Feb 28, 2020

EA has issued a permanent ban across all their games and services to professional FIFA player Kurt0411, citing “threatening behavior” as the reason for the penalty.

On February 24^th, Kurt “Kurt0411” Fenech posted a screenshot of a notification he received from EA informing him that his account had been disabled due to being in “violation of terms focused on harassment.”

Incredibly stuff honestly…banning me from their esports events wasn’t enough, trying to get my Twitch and YouTube channels banned wasn’t enough, they now shut down my 10 year plus Fut Founder account. No words pic.twitter.com/EqAVWprTI5

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) February 24, 2020

EA would follow-up on this notification by posting an official announcement to their official Twitter account, stating that the reason for Fenech’s ban was due to his continued posting of “abusive and threatening messages and videos about EA employees and competitive players on social media.”

An Important message regarding FIFA player Kurt0411. pic.twitter.com/RcHu1hMCup

— Electronic Arts (@EA) February 24, 2020

The statement reads:

“In November 2019, after a series of Code of Conduct violations as part of the EA Sports FIFA Global Series in which he threatened employees and other players, Kurt0411 was banned from competing or attending any EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series events or future competitions. Since that time, Kurt has continued to post abusive and threatening messages and videos about EA employees and competitive players on social media and he has encouraged others to do the same. His messages have crossed a line of decency into very personal attacks and breach our Terms of Service. We will not tolerate threatening behavior. As a result, today Kurt0411’s EA account will be banned from playing our games and accessing our services due to these serious and repeated violations.”

It continues:

“We build games and communities for players to have fun. Creating a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone without fear of harassment or abuse is a vital part of that. Our Terms of Service include a Code of Conduct that we ask players to abide by to keep our communities healthy and safe. We have an ongoing focus to create communities where everyone feels safe and respected, including in-game toxicity reporting tools as well as new moderation tools. And, we will continue to add more features.”

The statement concludes”

“We are open to feedback, and constructive criticism is always welcome. We encourage anyone who would like to share their thoughts on our games and services to visit our official EA forums, as well as our Trello Boards and Discord channels. When feedback crosses the line to threatening, personal attacks, we will take action to move it out of our communities. If you encounter threatening and toxic behavior, please visit the following URL to file a report: https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/#eahelp. We take each of these reports very seriously and each one is investigated thoroughly.”

Aside from placing second in the 2018 FIFA eWorld Cup, Fenech is well known for his constant and vocal criticism of EA, particularly their handling of the FIFA franchise:

“No one enjoys playing it” sums it up pretty nicely. What are you going to do now? Ban him as well? They’ve done everything this year but look at themselves and admit they fucked it. They killed their game and their “esport” https://t.co/v1g0RI89XU

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) February 22, 2020

So summary of the upcoming Fifa eSports season:

– Same overall prize money
– Same number of qual spots even though they halved the amount of tourneys
– Making us play qual on servers with massive delay
– Leaked our personal information to the whole world

Shut this farce down

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) October 3, 2019

I know everyone’s excited for fifa 20 right now but quick update on the eSports scene: Game comes out in 2 days and we still don’t have the calendar. Wanna make any plans? Forget about it. Oh and we still haven’t been paid for the playoffs that were held almost 3 months ago 👍

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) September 17, 2019

However, despite his indefinite ban, Fenech remains unapologetic about his criticism of EA’s poor handling of the franchise:

End of the day I have never said anything I shouldn’t have. This is just deeper than anyone thinks. They didn’t want me competing at events cos they were scared I’d win them, now I’m the 2nd biggest streamer of their game and they’re scared I’ll overtake their golden boy

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) February 24, 2020

But when everything is said and done we’ll beat them trust me. They have money but we have numbers. Fuck then and everyone on their side

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) February 24, 2020

He also asked EA to provide specific examples of him threatening their employees in response to their official statement banning his account from all of their games.

Could you give me examples of when I have threatened your incompetent employees?

— Kurt (@Kurt0411Fifa) February 24, 2020

According to a recent Tweet by internet drama entertainer Keemstar, Fenech has agreed to speak with Keemstar in a “documentary” regarding EA’s purported silencing attempts:

Just got off the phone with @Kurt0411Fifa

“The man EA sports wants to disappear”

Documentary Deal Done 🤝 ✅ pic.twitter.com/IsFaeSISTd

— KEEM 🍿@ PlaylistLive (@KEEMSTAR) February 25, 2020