[WATCH] Maltese FIFA gamer Kurt Fenech banned from all EA games

Kurt Fenech, better known as Kurt0411, has had his ban from FIFA competitive gaming extended to all Electronic Arts games. The entertainment giant said that it banned his account and his console from accessing any of its games.

Fenech, who has a Youtube channel, was a popular FIFA gamer and had fans express their outrage on his behalf when he was first banned. His ban even inspired hackers to hack into EA social accounts.

The company said that Fenech had posted "abusive and threatening messages" about its employees and described his behaviour as toxic and scary.

Fenech is arguably the most successful Maltese esports player, having raked in around $48,000 in winnings on a competitive platform in 2018 and 2019. 

However, that success was overshadowed by controversy. On online platforms, Fenech is often described as hubristic and arrogant, especially after he started going after EA for making money for "putting out the same shit, over and over again." Fenech had criticised the FIFA game for being inconsistent and badly developed.

The gamer has more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and often attracted more than 10,000 viewers to his live streams of the FIFA 20 football video game. Currently, 10 million users are consistently playing FIFA online.

The 25-year-old streamer has gathered a number of fans who have likewise been critical and has inspired other top-ranked players to boldly lambast the game.

The world's top-ranked Fifa 20 player Donovan Hunt, known as Tekkz, recently said at a professional event: "It's so unrewarding, anyone can win, guys who aren't good can win at FIFA 20 and no one enjoys playing it."

EA Games said it was "open to feedback and constructive criticism" but would not tolerate "toxic behaviour."

Fenech, who vowed to go to war with the company, said on his Youtube channel that despite receiving final warnings, he would not back down from openly criticising the game. 

In November 2019, Fenech was banned from all competitions after EA said he made "additional online attacks against competitors and EA employees", which he denied.

Following the ban, two EA employees had their Twitter accounts hacked.

In a video uploaded last month, he named and criticised an EA community manager, showed doctored images of the man and called him a "bum".

EA said it had banned Fenech because he "continued to post abusive and threatening messages and videos about EA employees and competitive players on social media and has encouraged others to do so".

Speaking to the BBC this week, Fenech said that the ban was nothing more than an abuse of power.

"Upon reflection I could see that I definitely did push the limits and, although merited, I shouldn't have made it as personal as I did.

"I accepted the initial account ban even though I deemed it harsh. But to then realise that the ban means I can never stream FIFA ever again is absolutely ridiculous and a clear abuse of power from EA.

"The only explanation is I became too much of a threat to a company, which has an obligation to provide a decent football game for football fans worldwide but in the past few years has stopped caring about us and is only interested in making money," he said.

Several gamers posted messages of support for Fenech on Twitter.