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Rainbow Six: Siege esports team M80’s head coach, Matheus ‘Budega’ Figueiredo, and team manager, Igor ‘Vivas‘ Vivas, have been “ejected” from the 2025 Six Invitational by Ubisoft, following an “altercation” that was partly caught on camera. The incident occurred after M80 had lost a match 2-1 to DarkZero Esports, and saw Budega shouting at members of the DarkZero team and at one stage having to be physically restrained from continuing to remonstrate with one of the players.
Budega can be heard shouting his head off in the background of this interview clip, and the beginnings of the altercation were streamed live (choice commentary line: “who says esports is boring?”). The incident occurred in the third and final map, with the match level, after DarkZero was awarded a free round due a rule violation from Budega. When DarkZero closed out the match, Budega started shouting and got in the face of various opposition players, and appears to barge into the back of DarkZero player Nathan ‘Nafe’ Sharp, with officials intervening.
Budega was removed from the venue almost immediately, swiftly followed by Vivas. Budega confirmed after the incident he had been warned twice (in posts that have subsequently been deleted, but are easily found), and went into self-justification mode. “A member of BLAST’s staff is making false accusations about me, saying that I physically intimidated him,” says Budega, who can be seen on the livestream getting physically close to other competitors, gesticulating wildly and remonstrating. “That’s a lie and the fact that someone has the courage to lie about that makes me sick.”
That’s a tough claim to make stick when you’ve been caught on camera. Nevertheless he continues, “I shouted things amid the heat of the moment that could have been avoided like, ‘Whoever made that decision should be fired’, but I never touched anyone and my conscience is clean, I still have chances for my ‘ban’ to be reverted.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this feels unlikely. No doubt Budega felt hard done by, but the clips show this is playground level behaviour at a professional event: If you can’t take a loss with a bit of grace, maybe you’re in the wrong career. This is not Budega’s first brush with Ubisoft: He was suspended for 12 months in 2022 for breaking the rules.
“Disappointed and shocked by what transpired during and after the match today,” said M80 founder and CEO Marco Mereu. “Completely unacceptable. Sorry to the players, fans, Ubisoft staff and Dark Zero for what took place. Completely ashamed of how M80 was represented today. Really no words.”
M80 continues to compete in the event’s lower bracket. One of its players, Leonardo ‘kyno’ Figueiredo, assured fans that the team are “hungrier than ever” and now have a fire in their nether regions (might want to get that checked).
The Invitational is the biggest event on the Siege calendar, with the 20 best teams in the world playing in Boston for a fetching Sledgehammer trophy and the lion’s share of a $3 million prize pool. Ubisoft’s official Rainbow Six account says “an active investigation into [Budega and Vivas’] conduct is underway”, and has gone back to posting (rather good) clips from the tournament.
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Kurt Indovina
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