League Of Legends Team Fires Manager For Threatening One Of His Players
German eSports team Meet Your Makers (MYM) has "released" its manager Sebastian "Falli" Rotterdam following the revelation that he had threatened League of Legends player Marcin "Kori" Wolski to intimidate him against quitting the team.
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MYM announced that Rotterdam has been "immediately released" from the team as part of a lengthy message posted on its Facebook page addressing the recent scandal. Read the full statement below, emphasis mine:
First off, we'd like to thank Richard Lewis and the Daily Dot for exposing a weakness in our management structure. Sometimes, we trust in the wrong people and we're guilty of doing that more that we'd like.
Please know that the actions of the few involved do not represent the passionate hard-working team we have at MeetYourMakers. Upon hearing the news, we've spent time collecting the facts to investigate internally.
We wanted to share this, our immediate actions and follow up, with the entire community. This is to everyone that's experienced the same emotional rollercoaster we have the last few days.
THE FACTS :
1. Sebastian 'Falli' Rotterdam, MYM's General Manager did have a threatening conversation with Marcin 'Kori' Wolski upon discovering Kori's desire to leave the team house prior to the start of the LCS.
2. Also present in the room was MYM's e-sports manager, Damir 'NestlieK' Dedic
3. No other people were physically in the room when the recorded conversation occurred
4. This incident was not reported to the CEO, Khaled Naim.
IMMEDIATE ACTIONS :
1. Seabstian Falli Rotterdam. Falli has been immediately released from MYM.
2. Kori. We're part of an open dialogue with Kori, ourselves and RIOT. We'll always try to do what's best for our players. Once a decision that Kori is happy with has been decided, we will let everyone know (or Daily Dot will!)
3. RIOT. RIOT are now deliberating over the unfolded events and will release their own formal statement soon
4. Damir. We've decided to retain Damir, our esports Manager. We want to see punishment served for the offenders not harm the victims. Upon discussions with the players, it became clear that Damir is not being blamed for what transpired. Like Kori, he felt threatened and pressured by a higher-up in the company who had later told him his job was at risk if Kori left the team.
FOLLOW UP :
1. We will host 1 on 1 sessions with our players and a neutral third party. The objective will be to understand any areas of improvement and identify any issues like this proactively.
2. We've always trusted our managers to do what's best for the players and exercise discretion in their decision making. In this instance, our trust has been abused. Going forward, we will host regular bi-monthly chats with all players + management to keep updated on any ongoing concerns. Management will also need to ask for approval from the CEO for any decisions involving player changes so that ultimate responsibility lies with CEO Khaled.
3. We will wait for an official RIOT statement and accept that we will need to ensure going forward something of this magnitude never happens again
4. 4. Our staff are part of the community we all call home. We rely on our conversations with all of you. Journalists, redditors, players, managers. Please if you ever hear of something as fundamentally shocking as what has happened, drop us just a one line.
We didn't want this to sound like a rehearsed PR statement.
As the CEO of MYM, I can only say that I truly apologize for my own choice of words in my communication. I would also like to extend a sincere apology to Richard Lewis and his team at Daily Dot- in the future we want to be part of the solution not cause issues for those doing great work for the community.
We owe a massive debt of gratitude to everyone who spend even a moment watching MYM including our hard working staff. To confirm, we are already working with Kori to figure out what he wants to do next.
Kori will soon make his own announcement which we feel shouldn't come from us, as this has affected him so personally. We'll support any statement he makes and stand-by him no matter what. He's a big part of MYM and he'll be treated as such.
TL:DR :
- General Manager Sebastian Falli' Rotterdam fired
- Esports Manager Damir stays on- players agreed
- Kori to decide what his next steps are
- CEO Khaled to have 1-to-1's with players + staff alongside a netural third party to identify any existing issues
- MYM wants to thank the community for their ongoing support and concern
- MYM wants to thank Richard Lewis and the Daily Dot for making us aware of these issues. We want to acknowledge Richard's and esport journalist's role as essential for teams like us
Thank you all,
Khaled Naim & the entire MYM
News surfaced over the weekend that Rotterdam had threatened Kori aggressively upon learning that the player wanted to step down from his position at MYM, going as far as to tell Wolski he would make sure the teenage gamer's mother would lose her house.
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Riot has yet to comment publicly on the story. MYM's statement is the first indication that the company is planning to weigh in on the issue.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.
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