In the League of Legends professional team EDward Gaming from the Chinese LPL, there has allegedly been a case of sexual harassment. The former employee has made serious allegations. Furthermore, hush money is said to have been paid. In the meantime, the head of EDG has also spoken out.
What happened? According to several posts on Weibo, a Chinese social network, there has allegedly been sexual harassment at the EDward Gaming (EDG) team.
A former employee claims that a cameraman sexually harassed her for a year. There are video recordings showing that she was reportedly groped.
She was unsuccessful with her complaints to the team management in January 2020. She was subsequently terminated. However, the head of EDward Gaming has now taken on the problem himself. He has contacted the young woman and is helping her to take further steps.
Cameraman allegedly harassed video team employee
The LoL expert and insider Linda translated the posts from Chinese Weibo into English and shared them on Twitter. Her tweets also include the original links to the Weibo posts:
In the text, the former employee reports that she was new to the industry and initially didn’t know how to get help. She was afraid of losing her job and never being able to establish herself in this field again.
This is the described timeline: The harassment allegedly began a year ago, but it wasn’t until January 2020 that she dared to inform her superiors at the team. However, they did not help her:
- She informed Chen Mou, the operation manager, about the harassment.
- He told her that EDG would have to pay a severance if they were to fire the photographer.
- The management suggested that she approach the photographer and provoke him. Then they would have something concrete to fire him.
- She did not accept the suggestion and instead tried to deal with the problem on her own by avoiding the photographer and never being alone with him in a room.
- However, such situations reportedly happened repeatedly, for example, in a changing room where they stood next to each other. She also claims that these encounters were even facilitated by management instead of helping her.
However, she has now decided to go public with this. As she later added, the company’s head, Edward Zhu, likely knew nothing of the harassment. He himself only learned about it through social media posts.
Employee speaks of hush money: The former employee also says that she received a bonus payment. She suspects it was a form of hush money. Therefore, she returned the money.
Subsequently, EDG gave the employee additional tasks that should actually be handled by 2 or 3 people. If she did not complete the tasks by the deadline, she faced termination.
She then wrote the statement and resigned from EDG.
Videos allegedly show harassment: In another tweet, Linda shared a video that is said to show such harassment. It shows that the photographer comes very close to the employee with his hand multiple times. According to her statement, he fondled her during those moments.
EDG responds, head investigates himself
What does the LoL team say? In a statement on Weibo, the team addressed the public and presented some points quite differently:
- The employee allegedly did not provide sufficient evidence with her complaints to justify action.
- Moreover, she is said to have been negligent, played while working, and not appeared for work.
- The team stated that they have zero tolerance for “violations of social morals and social laws” and do not ignore reports from their employees.
- They hope that the employee will contact the police so they can investigate the case.
- The money she is said to have received as hush money would have been a bonus that all employees in the department would have received (via Dotesports).
This post reportedly led to many negative reactions on Weibo, according to Dotesports.
What does the head say? In the meantime, the head of EDG, Edward Zhu, has spoken out. His statement allegedly sounds quite different from that of EDG itself:
- He apologized for the emotional distress she has suffered.
- He wants to cooperate and protect the rights of the victim.
- He will ensure that the perpetrator is punished and those who did not take the complaints seriously will be dismissed.
What happens next? In the meantime, both EDG and the former employee have commented again on the allegations. She announced that Edward Zhu has indeed contacted her and they will address the situation together.
She reported it to the Public Security Bureau, and Zhu assured her that EDG would work through the case to the end and launch an investigation. After the investigation is completed, the public will be informed.
At Riot Games itself, there have been no sexual assaults, but there have been several instances of sexism. Two women complained that they were discriminated against and their promotion opportunities were restricted. They reached an agreement in which Riot paid 10 million dollars to former female employees.
