The event promised to be grandiose and historic: this Saturday, November 23, the Geneva e-sport team BDS was to welcome several of the best “Rocket League” teams in the world to Geneva, within the Building of Motive Forces, to his big Take The Throne tournament. On its site, the Swiss structure, European heavyweight and double world champion on the Psyonix video game, spoke of “the largest professional e-sport event in the history of Switzerland”. But the competition was canceled in a hurry on Thursday, following anti-abortion remarks made by the boss of BDS.
In a message published Wednesday on X and since deleted, Belgian Patrice Bailo De Spoelberch declared, in reaction to a video, that it was “shameful to put a living being through this. A woman who dares to have an abortion should lose the right to have children.” The exit of the CEO of BDS, whose last name is the origin of the team’s acronym, quickly provoked an avalanche of indignant reactions on social networks. The next day, three of the headliners of the Geneva tournament, the teams Team Vitality, Karmine Corp and Gentle Mates, announced their withdrawal from the competition in a joint press release, “following the disrespectful and controversial comments made by the owner of the organizing club towards women’s rights.
At the same time and in the “current context”, BDS has decided to cancel Take The Throne. “The words of our founder are his own and in no way reflect the vision and values of the players, collaborators (…), fans and staff of the structure,” reacted the Swiss team, which specifies that all tickets will be refunded, and that measures will be taken quickly internally. As for Patrice Bailo De Spoelberch, he apologized on
“We are obviously disappointed for our players and all the staff”
If the participants unequivocally condemn the words of the BDS boss, the cancellation of the Take The Throne tournament is a hard blow for the e-sport community in Switzerland. “We are obviously disappointed for our players, and all the staff who were supposed to be present, because it was a lot of training and preparation,” declares Kevin Batista, manager of the Vaud Cloud Esport team. The French-speaking structure was one of two Swiss teams, with the German-speaking VisionGaming, qualified for the event via an open competition at the beginning of November. “Thank you to the staff of Take The Throne and BDS for making us dream during the time of a qualifier, hoping that you will get back on track,” adds Cloud Esport, which remains “firmly committed to supporting an e-sports scene based on positive and constructive values.
