Pro player faces two-week ESL ban for offensive craft
AMKAL player Vladislav "Krad" Kravchenko has stated on his Telegram channel that he has been handed a two-week ban from ESL due to an offensive Desert Eagle craft used in an official match yesterday. The offensive craft was first spotted by Swedish journalist Ludvig Nilsson yesterday, with the Desert Eagle using team souvenir stickers to spell out the word "n*gga" as can be seen in Nilsson's X post below.
The matter ended up being something of a mini cause célèbre on esports social media, with pundits and fans alike offering their opinions on the craft while also trying to determine how long Krad owned the weapon and whether or not he added the offending stickers.
For his part, Krad said that he was oblivious to the craft and that he did not notice due to playing with the left-handed gun model.
Regardless of how the gun ended up in Krad's inventory, ESL were clearly unhappy with the offensive item appearing on stream, leading to the minor sanction being applied against the player.
9Pandas told HLTV that they are set to field Anton "tonyblack" Kolesnikov as a stand-in for the next two weeks until Krad's ban expires, giving him ample time to scrape the offending stickers off of his Deagle.
