Chelsea footballer Mykhailo Mudryk banned on FACEIT for toxicity after offensive comments about WW2 massacre

Premier League footballer Mykhailo Mudryk has been given a 28-day ban on FACEIT for toxicity following a serious of offensive anti-Polish comments made while playing a PUG on the service. Mudryk made a number of offensive comments directed toward his Polish opponents, referencing the Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia during World War 2 and the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939.

The ethnic cleaning of Poles from the regions, which now largely lie in modern-day Ukraine, continue to be a contentious topic in Ukrainian-Polish relations, with the scope and classification of the massacre still being a source of political and academic debate in the nations.

The comments by Mudryk appear to have been spurred on after one of his opponents mocked him for a failed June 2025 drug test, saying "Bro, do more drugs." This led to Murdyk referencing the Volyn Massacres and the German Invasion of Poland in WW2 by saying "next volyn", "volyn next map", and "next map 39."

The two events culminated in the loss of around 6 million Polish lives over the course of the war, while the Volhynia massacres saw as many as 100,000 Poles killed by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists between 1943 and 1945.

The comments surrounding drug use stem from Mudryk's provisional ban from the English Football Association for testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug meldonium. The winger tested positive for the substance in December of 2024, then tested positive in a "B" test in June of last year. He faces a suspension of up to four years for the doping breach. Mudryk maintains his innocence, saying that he unknowingly ingested the substance.

Counter-Strike 2 continues to be incredibly popular among footballers in Ukraine and abroad, with Passion UA being owned by Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko while Andriy Yarmolenko, Dmytro Kryskiv, and Vitaliy Mykolenko are also known to play the game, among others.