The headlines surrounding the Korean League of Legends team Griffin are unrelenting. Riot Games has announced further consequences in a statement due to poor contracts.
What has happened now? A week ago, Riot Games released the official penalties for team Griffin:
- Former coach cvMax is banned from all Riot Games eSports events indefinitely.
- The former director Cho Guy-nam is also banned for life from events.
- Team Griffin is fined approximately $85,000.
Now further details have been released, along with additional penalties:
- The penalty for Cho Guy-nam applies to all areas surrounding Riot Games. He is not allowed to be a coach, player, director, part of a team, or even a shareholder of an organization. This is the highest penalty that can be enforced according to the Global Penalty Index.
- The problematic player contracts were created by the management of Still8, the parent company of Griffin. Therefore, Riot Games also requires that the entire management must resign by the end of 2019 and sell all shares in Still8 by the LCK Summer Promotional Tournament 2020.
Crazy scandal that is being punished hard
Why are the penalties so high? The penalties for Still8 and especially the director and the former coach are high, but apparently not unjustified. Shortly before the Worlds 2019 the team Griffin fired its coach cvMax. The reason given was that the “trust between both parties” had been broken.
However, it has now been revealed that the coach allegedly physically and verbally abused his players. In particular, the player Sword was reportedly shaken by the coach and referred to as “motherless”.
The manager Cho Gy-nam is also said to have done illegal things. He allegedly forced players into bad contracts and negotiated with underage players without parental consent.
Additionally, the former player “Kanavi” was pushed into a bad contract with another team. This contract has since been terminated by Riot Games Korea.
What will happen to team Griffin? The once successful LoL team, which was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Worlds 2019 against the defending champion Invictus Gaming, has now been completely released from its contracts.
The players can independently decide whether to sign new contracts or prefer to switch teams. Three of the best players have already announced their departures.
What is Riot Games doing now? To prevent such incidents from happening again, Riot Games Korea will thoroughly review all player contracts in the LCK and Challengers Korea before the start of the Spring Season.
Furthermore, a standard contract for the LCK is set to be published in the first half of 2020.
Additionally, new instances will be established to ensure compliance with the rules and to question existing rules. Professional teams are also to be better trained in dealing with verbal and physical violence.
