Apex Legends pro Francisco ‘k4shera’ Alves has apologized for sending racist messages toward Korean player Lim ‘Obly’ Jung-hyun during a set of scrims.
The Apex Legends pro scene has been back in full swing, with teams across the globe having an eye toward the ALGS Split 2 Playoffs in London on July 13th.
With the LAN final being just a few weeks away, scrims and practice regimes have become a bit more regular in nature, with a few regions starting to mix as well. It’s no longer solely Europe vs Europe or North America vs North America in lobbies.
However, Acend’s k4shera came under fire as he targeted Fun123’s Obly during May 31st scrims, sending two messages towards him in the pre-game lobby that had to be censored after Obly had jokingly renamed himself ‘ACE Baldguy’ and challenged his squad at the Staging POI.
A number of viewers and Apex fans called out the Acend player for being racist within the messages, prompting a lengthy apology from him following the set of scrims.
“I never support racism or bigotry. I know I am not these things and never had any intention of targeting a specific racial group or nationality, I only intended to respond to obly directly in response to feeling disrespected by him in the last few days,” he tweeted.
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“It was a very poor use of wording, there are obviously cultural differences which I didn’t take into account and caused more offense than I ever intended with an insult that was only targeted to one player.
“I apologise directly to obly and to anyone that felt offended by the wording that I used, if he or anyone took particular offense by it to this beyond the normal back and forth of the scene I apologize because my intent was very far away from it.”
I never support racism or bigotry. I know I am not these things and never had any intention of targeting a specific racial group or nationality, I only intended to respond to obly directly in response to feeling disrespected by him in the last few days. It was a very poor…
— K4SHERA (@k4shera) May 31, 2023
Obly quickly accepted the apology, owning up to his “trolling” and adding that k4shera shouldn’t have been put under the microscope for “racial issues.”
He tweeted: “In this game we sometimes spout random words and that’s not true. The beginning was my trolling, but you don’t have to be criticized unnecessarily for racial issues. love and peace.”