Team Vitality today confirmed a two-week suspension for VALORANT coach Tanishq "Tanizhq" Sabharwal, following a twitter spat. The suspension will be back-dated, meaning that Tanizhq, who has been suspended since the incident, will be free to coach again in four days time, on June 21.

The crux of the issue seems to be a reply sent by Tanizhq, in which he accused Karmine Corps coach Ahmed "ZE1SH" El Sheikh of stirring up racism against Indians, a claim he has since retracted. This came after ZE1SH responded to a now-deleted tweet from Tanizhq, in which the Karmine assistant coach speculated that the Vitality coach may be ‘completely devoid of sense’.

It seems as though there was some degree of animosity already built up between the two, even beyond the scope of just being rivals in the same league, as Tanizhq fired back with some extremely strong words, as you can see below. Vitality have not commented on the veracity of his claims of racism at all, and Karmine Corp do not appear to have made any comment on KE1SH’s part in the situation.

Super week and personal factors caused outburst

According to VLR.gg staff, Tanizhq also received a warning from Riot and the organizers of the French VALORANT Regional League (VLR) after the conversation on Twitter. He also had his salary for the period docked, with his organization saying the sum would be donated to e-Enfance, a charity aimed at combating online abuse and harassment, and was made to attend a media training session.

In a statement released today, Tanizhq stated that he had falsely attributed comments made by others to KE1SH, and apologized unreservedly for his behavior. He also apologized for ‘endangering the brand’ which is a strange thing for his managers to expect him to consider if Tanizhq really did believe racism was a factor, but standard in these situations too.

According to the statement, there were personal factors which contributed to his stress that all came to a head during the time of the Twitter spat, as well as the added pressure of a 'super week' for his team. Tanizhq stated that he is working with the Team Vitality Mental Coach to avoid similar issues in future. We have reached out to Karmine for comment, and will update the article accordingly should they respond.