PokerStars Drops Dale “daleroxxu” Philip After Undignified Celebration
July 18, 2014 12:13 pmScottish poker pro, blogger and member of Team PokerStars Online has been dropped from the world’s biggest internet poker site following his excessive celebration of a FIFA World Cup goal. Team Online Ambassador Dale “daleroxxu” Philip was in Spain on June 17th helping to promote PokerStars’ own Marbella Poker Festival, and also took the opportunity to watch the country’s first round soccer game against Holland.
That match proved to be one of the biggest upsets of the whole competition, with reigning World and European champions Spain eventually crushed by five goals to one. One of those goals included a Robin Van Persie header, resulting in a perplexing show of celebration by Dale Philip. Surprising in as much as being Scottish, the game shouldn’t have really meant that much to him, and that his celebration was bound to antagonize the locals, hardly the gracious behaviour expected from a PokerStars ambassador.
Also watching the match was Alex Hernando from Poker Red, who subsequently tweeted Philip expressing his distaste for the Scot’s behaviour, leading to an exchange of messages:
Dale Philip: “Spaniards, sorry you lost a game of football and sorry I was cheering loudly for the other team, but you really need better tilt-control. gg.. Insulting me and threatening me on twitter when you are 10 metres away from me is ridiculous. Just a game, cheer up and let’s be friends.”
Alex Hernando: “@daleroxxu don’t think the 1st person that insulted somebody were u with u multiple two fingers?Sure people from PS don’t stand ur behavior.. @daleroxxu and finally. Maybe you should think about the patch u were wearing. I’m 200% sure that PS would not stand your “celebration moves”
Although the situation eventually blew over, the damage had already been done and after Dale Philip performed his PokerStars duties the site subsequently pulled him from Team Online Pro. Following the move, many of Philip’s supporters in the UK poker community expressed their disappointment at the severity of the punishment, and as one poster put it:
“Unless you did a Nazi salute or genuinely tried to start a fight, I think you got shafted there man.”