It seems that not an entire month can pass without several prominent members of the esports community being brought up on charges of homophobic or racists remarks. This time, it was k1to, a professional CS:GO player from the German team Alternate aTTaX. During a pickup match, k1to reportedly called felps, Brazillian player for SK Gaming, a “fucking monkey.” After finding out about the remark, the event organizer Faceit banned k1to from playing in the FPL for one month.

This news follows what is an ever increasing trend of professional esports players speaking inappropriately and being punished immediately. The esports community as a whole has taken on a zero tolerance stance for any forms of offensive language. While past cases have been cut and dry in punishment, k1to’s case is a little more difficult to classify as outright offensive.

First, felps filed no complaints or reports against k1to. In fact, the only reason the issue came to light was because a community manager at Faceit chose to give out a month long suspension from the Faceit Pro League (FPL). Second, Alternate aTTaX spoke to Dot Esports on the matter and clarified that in German, the word is essentially harmless, and k1to by no means meant it as anything racist or derogatory. This might sound like a cop-out from the team, but monkey or ape (affe) is somewhat common and innocuous insult from Germans.

Inselaffe (island-monkey) is a German insult often leveled against the British. The insult, as a whole, is seen as a bit rude and uncouth, but it certainly isn’t racist. Germans might also use the phrase lackaffe (lacquer-monkey) to describe an overly flashy dresser. Again, the phrase doesn’t come with any sort of racist or bigoted overtones.

Felps also seemed rather unphased by the incident. After k1to took to Twitter to make a formal apology to felps, felps responded with, “We have [all] made mistakes and learned.”

It seems like the only ones taking the incident seriously are the organizers at Faceit, who may simply be overcautious following what has been an extremely rough year for esports. In just the first few months of 2018, prominent members in nearly every major esport have been banned or fired from teams for offensive language. While the insult here could be taken as less insulting in German, it seems like eports as a whole aren’t taking any chances.