Suspended VALORANT pro Jay "SINATRAA" Won announced this week on Twitter that he is preparing for his return to professional play after a year out of the game. The player was initially suspended following allegations of sexual assault made by his former partner and then handed a six-month suspension by VALORANT publishers Riot Games for his failure to co-operate with the investigation.

SINATRAA was representing Sentinels at the time the allegations against him were made, and has named the organization as his ideal home should he be deemed good enough to return to the fold. At this stage, it looks as though organizations are showing no objection to signing him, despite his inability to ever fully refute the charges made against him, which eventually became irrelevant due to the lack of court proceedings.

In terms of his return, at the time SINATRAA was banned, Sentinels captain Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan said on stream "no, this is our team now" when asked about a possible return for the accused player. Whether this remains true to this day remains to be seen, but it is unlikely SINATRAA would name Sentinels as his ideal destination if there were no way back for him on that org.

Failure to cooperate

The case centered around an audio recording, allegedly of SINATRAA and his former partner, which appeared to have SINATRAA demanding sex despite his partner repeatedly saying "no". The accusation was met with a denial by the VALORANT player, who vowed to clear his name by releasing full recordings that he said would prove his innocence.

SINATRAA’s conduct obviously caused a negative storm at the time of the accusations coming to light, with the player part of a very successful Sentinels team and one of North America’s biggest stars in the esport. In the following weeks, SINATRAA failed to follow up on the commitment to release recordings that would exonerate him, and to this point in time has still not done so, instead going quiet on social media for a few months while the accusations cooled off.

While this failure to cooperate did earn him a six-month ban from Riot, it seems as though SINATRAA took the best option in the end, with the game publisher seemingly happy to welcome him back into the pro scene and no legal action ever manifesting. To this day, many fans will still defend him on social media, and his accuser has been relentlessly harassed on social media by supporters of the player.