Overwatch League player ‘Eqo’ draws ire for racist gesture on stream

UPDATE April 4th, 2018: Both Eqo and the Philadelphia Fusion have issued statements—along with a fine—on Eqo’s behavior.

Josue “Eqo” Corona, a player for Overwatch League team Philadelphia Fusion, has drawn criticism from fans and will receive punishment from his team for using a racist gesture during a recent stream on his personal Twitch channel.

Corona, who is an 18 years old DPS player, was streaming this past weekend and responding to messages on Twitch chat. In response to one Twitch comment about his ethnicity — Corona was born in Colombia, but emigrated to Israel at age 3 — “Eqo” joked “I’m Korean,” and pulled back his eyes, seemingly in a mocking Asian caricature. You can watch a clip of that moment on Streamable.

Fellow Overwatch League player Jun-Sung “Asher” Choi called out Corona on Twitter with a tweet reading “?? wtf? @eqo” That lead to Philadelphia Fusion president Tucker Roberts to apologize on Corona and his team’s behalf, saying that punishment from the team was forthcoming. The League itself has not announced a punishment for Corona’s behavior on stream

Corona later attempted, rather poorly, to apologize for his actions in a pair of tweets:

At the time I wasn’t aware that this might offend anyone if u watch my stream you will probably know that I love koreans and all I do is compliment them all the time ... this gesture was never with the intention to mock someone

Obviously l apologize to anyone that got offended this clip got is out of context a bit since I was complimenting the Koreans before the clip and after the clip and did the gesture more in a form of wanting to express myself being like them since I admire them not making fun ..

Corona’s team is scheduled to play next Thursday, April 5, when Overwatch League returns for stage three of its inaugural season. The Philadelphia Fusion will play the Boston Uprising.