ESL to Evaluate the Conflicts of Interest Reported at ESL One: Road to Rio
Cover And Thumbnail Image Courtesy: ESL One
- ESL states that they are currently seeking clarification on the conflict of interest situation between MIBR and Yeah Gaming at ESL One: Road to Rio tournament.
- MIBR and Yeah Gaming played against each other yesterday which resulted in MIBR winning the match '2-0'.
- Valve has still not given its verdict on the situation, which goes against their own statement from September 2019.
After facing a lot of backlash from the community in regards to the conflict of interest reported by participants of ESL One: Road to Rio tournament, between the two Brazilian organizations MIBR and Yeah Gaming, ESL has stated that they are “currently seeking clarification” on the matter.
The tournament organizers further clarified that “Decisions on further action will depend on the nature of the additional information that is disclosed.” For now, the information at hand as disclosed by HLTV clearly shows the close ties between MIBR and Yeah, with MIBR coach Ricardo "dead" Sinigaglia and team member Epitacio "TACO" de Melo, owning part of Yeah Gaming.
In addition to this, MIBR’s parent company Immortal Gaming Club holds the right to buy out at most two players from Yeah Gaming for a set price in a calendar year in exchange for a yearly fee. To make matters worst both MIBR and Yeah Gaming are in the same group of ESL One: Road to Rio - North America, and have already faced each other yesterday with MIBR beating them by a score of ‘2-0’.
This is not the only conflict of interest existing at the event with Evil Geniuses coach Wilton "zews" Prado owning quite a huge stake in Yeah Gaming, while Dignitas player Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund also owns a minority stake in Ninjas in Pyjamas.
And though Valve wanted to see what the community had to say about the whole conflict of interest situation, ESL has gone ahead and given their opinion on the matter.
This does not change the fact that Valve had themselves taken a stance against “shared ownership between teams and tournament organizers” last year in September, reserving the rights to remove business entanglements or terminate the agreement without cost or penalty.
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What prompted Valve to go against something that they once stood for, has not been disclosed as of now. Let’s see what outcome is reached on this topic by the two bodies.
