PH VALORANT coach Jehiel "PizzaFPS" Ardiente went on Twitter to discuss the alleged sexual harassment incident that took place in Rising Hope, a Serbian-based female VALORANT team that is mostly made up of PH players.
This harassment, he said, was the reason why he and his players left the organization.
"I, as the head coach, along with the players, unanimously voted to leave Rising Hope due to the trauma that one of the coaches (Simons) gave to us."
How did Simons traumatize the players? "A week prior to Elite," he said, "we would hold daily training and scrims. After the discussion and planning of strategy, Simons would just speak out randomly and say, 'Hey Wway call me and show me your dick,' He would say this around three times.
"It may be an internal joke to them or something but since I am a coach of female players, I found it inappropriate[.] [S]o I called him out telling him that it wasn’t a good joke and that he should refrain from doing that as it was not funny."
September 27 incident in Rising Hope VALORANT squad
Because of that incident, the team decided to conduct scrimmages without the two coaches. However, in one instance, Simons requested to be involved in their scrims via Discord.
"September 27, 2022 - We continued to practice and train without the two coaches," recalled PizzaFPS. "Simons sent a message asking to watch the scrims. Of course, we transferred to their Discord but I asked Wway to watch the scrims as well so that if Simons were to talk inappropriately again, there would be someone to stop him."
Initially, things were looking good until...
"A few minutes after, he switched his camera on and showed his penis. Being that the players were all on dual-monitors, they were the first to see it and got shocked. I have a single monitor, so I didn’t know what happened. The players left the Discord and I was wondering what happened. I transferred to our Discord and asked them what happened. They told me how Simons showed his penis right in front of the camera."
Players, coach leave team in wake of incident
After the scrim, the team reviewed the footage and discovered that Simons has been drinking alcohol during the scrim. Ardiente didn't hesitate to report the incident to Lazar, one of the co-owners of the team.
Despite the turn of events, Lazar was initially hesitant to let go of Simons.
"We told Lazar that if he didn’t take out Simons, we would be the ones to leave the org. Initially, Lazar wanted to keep Simons in the org with the reason that he 'is a big star'," said Ardiente.
"[B]ut he agreed with the team's sentiments about Simons' behavior, and told us that he will not be joining the team as coach moving forward."
To the players' and coach's surprise, however, an announcement on Twitter revealed, that Simons will still be a part of the team, and will will oversee the change in the team's lineup.
Since the coach's revelations, various members from the community have expressed their support to Ardiente.
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