The player mentioned on his live broadcast after the game that Riot Games had punished Cloud9’s VALORANT star Jordan “Zellsis” Montemurro for making a sexual gesture during his team’s match versus NRG on April 23. During his “air-sucking dick” moment, Zellsis was being filmed by the official VCT Americas broadcast, but the camera quickly cut away.
“Apparently, I’m on the main stream for this shit dude, that got me fined,” Zellsis said, prompting his viewers to think he got a $10,000 fine, which was the donation goal of his live stream. “Listen, I got a fine, I can’t say how much. Let’s just say that. The 10k is there to just be 10k. [I got fined] for air-sucking dick.”
While we don’t know for sure which rule Riot followed to hand a fine to Zellsis after his obscene gesture during the match between C9 vs. NRG, it’s likely that he broke the VALORANT Champions Tour’s Code of Conduct. Here’s what Riot says in Global Competition Policy’s section 7.3.1:
“A team member may not, during a live event, online event, media event, or in any communication relating to any official competition or VALORANT, use any language that is offensive, insulting, libelous, slanderous, defamatory, obscene, discriminatory, threatening, foul or vulgar,” the rulebook reads. Riot says in the rulebook that it has the right to impose “fines, suspensions, disqualifications, and other disciplinary action” at its discretion.
Even though Zellsis himself is light-hearted about the fine, as you can see in his live stream, some VALORANT fans on YouTube disagreed with Riot’s decision and considered the fine controversial. It’s unclear if Riot would have fined him if the broadcast didn’t catch the gesture, but as it did, and it’s likely the fine came as a result of the gesture being shown to possibly thousands of minors at home.