Riot Games has issued a permanent ban to the former coach of the LoL team “Team Solo Mid”, Peter Zhang. This is equivalent to a professional ban in League of Legends. Zhang is accused of unethical behavior, including misappropriating salaries intended for players.
This is the decision of Riot Games:
Riot Games has determined that Peter Zhang has engaged in “unethical behavior” towards current and former players and staff of TSM.
As a result, Peter Zhang is permanently banned from working for any team or organization participating in competitions hosted by Riot Games.
Ultimately, this is a global professional ban for Peter Zhang to work in League of Legends or other titles like Valorant.
Who is Peter Zhang? The native Chinese worked for Team Solo Mid since 2018, initially as a coach for the Academy team, later as the “Head of Player Development”. On March 18, 2022, Peter Zhang was released by TSM. He was accused of a conflict of interest.
The “Team Solo Mid” is the most successful and largest e-sports team in LoL in the USA. However, TSM is currently in a deep crisis.
A Variety of Allegations All About Money
What is he accused of? Zhang was accused by his team TSM of embezzling approximately $250,000 between December 2021 and February 2022, which was supposed to be paid to two players.
Additionally, Zhang allegedly offered in October 2021 to sell the car of a former TSM player and transfer the money to the player, but he withheld more than half of the $80,000 he received for the car. As is known from the discussion regarding the incident, it was the car of the world-class supporter SwordArt.
Zhang is also said to have borrowed approximately $15,000 from 8 TSM players and staff, over whom he had some authority as a manager.
All these findings resulted from investigations by Riot Games and TSM – Peter Zhang has not been able to refute these allegations with conclusive evidence.
Zhang Dismissed Allegations as a “Cultural Misunderstanding”, Then Remained Silent
What did Zhang say? When the allegations arose, Zhang explained that it was all a cultural misunderstanding. In China, it is common to borrow money from friends. He needed the money for his sick grandmother (via dexerto).
However, he denies involvement in the embezzlement of player salaries. Now it seems that these very involvements have led to his downfall.
In LoL, champions are regularly reworked:
TSM Aims to Build a Strong LoL Team Through “China Connection”, Fails
What lies behind this: At the heart of this case is a fundamental conflict:
- In the USA, they want to recruit “talented players” from China and hope to discover young talents at a low cost
- However, China is such a jungle of corruption and impenetrable entanglements that intermediaries are required to operate as a US team there – so they need someone who knows the way
- Zhang apparently intervened here and profited from the situation
Ultimately, the China phase went terribly wrong for TSM. The Chinese players they brought in did not perform. And the intermediary Zhang apparently funneled money into his own pockets.
The entire “China experiment” turned out to be a total failure for TSM.
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