On Friday, Japanese esports organisation FENNEL announced that it had hired two coaches for their all-femaleValorantteam on its official Twitter account.FENNEL introduced coaches Rader and hanpipe, saying that it aimed to participate in the Valorant world championships for the second year in a row, and captioned it with a custom image welcoming the two coaches. Two days after the Tweet, a popular Japanese Twitter account known as@takigare3brought an allegation against hanpipe directly underneath FENNEL’s announcement tweet, claiming hanpipe had sexual relations with a minor.Related:Dewa United Lost “About £10,000” Due To Visa Mistakes Ahead Of ALGS PlayoffsFENNEL then followed up on takigare3’s Tweet to say that it was investigating “the facts” around the allegation and would report back after seeking more information. Today, March 20, FENNEL announced that it was terminating its contract with hanpipe.
FENNEL’s statement said that it had checked the facts and said “that hanpipe himself had admitted to the facts and that the matter had been reported to a third party” (viaDexerto).
The claim made by @takigare3, or Gareso Takizawa, who happens to have 1.8 million followers on Twitter, was that hanpipe had sex with a 16-year-old high school student at her parent’s house and had tried to cover it up. While the Tweet itself contained no proof, Takizawa claimed they had the evidence to back up their allegation and would be willing to provide it. Theirtweetalleging the sexual misconduct has been viewed more than four million times, according to Twitter stats.
FENNEL Female had recently competed in the Game Changers East Asia qualifiers to reach the 2022 VCT Game Changers Championship. FENNEL was established in 2019 and has competed in the likes of Fortnite, Apex Legends, PUBG, as well as Valorant. They run men’s and women’s teams, with the men’s Valorant team recently winning the Japan Challengers Split 1.
As for hanpipe, he has not directly responded to the allegations or updated his Twitter, with the last Tweet coming on March 17 wherein he reposted FENNEL’s announcement that he was joining as coach.
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