It’s one of the most bizarre and unfortunate events to occur at a Dota 2 event in years as AVALUS’s Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev and Team Falcons’s Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf reportedly found themselves in a physical confrontation at PGL Wallachia Season 2.
The confrontation, which seemingly occurred in a hotel lobby in Bucharest, Romania, allegedly saw SoNNeikO put his arms around ATF before the former threatened to strike the latter. This led to managers of both Team Falcons and AVALUS attempting to separate the two. Initial statements claim that the incident was provoked by an previous online confrontation.
SoNNeikO at PGL Wallachia S2. Image Credit: PGL/Sebastian Pandelache
News of the incident first officially broke via PGL Wallachia Season 2 tournament organizer PGL ahead of the matchup between Team Falcons and AVALUS, although leaked information had hit social media earlier. In the post PGL explained they would be applying a draft penalty due to “an altercation between SoNNeikO and ATF in the hotel lobby.”
“AVULUS has been issued a Level 3 Penalty for the entire series against Falcons (-110 seconds bonus time on the Draft) following an altercation between SoNNeikO and ATF in the hotel lobby.
We condemn this type of behavior, as it goes against the values of sportsmanship and respect that we uphold in our tournaments.
The incident has been reviewed thoroughly, and appropriate action has been taken to ensure the integrity of the competition.
We expect all participants to maintain professionalism on and off the stage.
#PGLWALLACHIA”
This announcement was quickly followed by a statement by both ATF and his organization. ATF attempted to explain his side of the incident:
“Just to clarify what happened today 3 months ago i was playing a ranked game against soniko during the game i called him braindead. after the game he sent me a threatening message on X which i took as banter. today he approached me in hotel lobby put his arm on my shoulder and sonniko started threatening to punch me and put me in ground (xd?) to which i replied please punch me. he just stood there and kept threatening me despite avulus manager coach and players trying to get him to stop. anyways i guess he did this because he can’t beat me in game.”
Falcons issued a longer statement via their social media, stating that they would be considering leaving the event:
Image Credit: Team Falcons
Following this statement, Falcons continued in the tournament to beat AVULUS 2-0, although we wouldn’t have bet on AVALUS beating Falcons in this matchup even without a draft penalty.
AVALUS has not released a statement in English at the time of writing, and does not have a social media presence outside of Telegram or VK. Esports.net has attempted to reach out to AVALUS for comment.