For those unaware of the news, Fnatic controversially released their offlaner Khoo "Ohaiyo" Chong Xin to bring in Sahil "Universe" Arora. Since then, the organization has been facing unrelenting criticism from the Dota 2 community. So Fnatic has released a statement, from their Chief Gaming officer, to apologize to Ohaiyo and their fans, as well as clearing up any confusion about why the incident happened in the first place.
The full statement, which can be read here, states that,
While Fnatic has expressed their reasoning and regret for releasing Ohaiyo from their team, they seem to have missed the cause of the negative reaction of the fans; The manner in which the kick was handled. Ohaiyo wasn’t given any information about his impending release and was only told after he helped the team qualify for the ESL One 2018: Katowice Major.
The Fnatic management also hasn’t clarified on why they had to ‘accommodate’ Universe in EternalEnvy’s rental house instead of Fnatic’s Bootcamp.
This statement also clarifies that Ohaiyo will continue to receive a salary while he remains contracted on top of getting a share of team's ESL One Katowice 2018 Major winnings. This should somewhat pacify Ohaiyo who himself released an emotional statement following his replacement.
With the last Malaysian player from the Malaysia-based team being released from the team, and with ESL One: Genting on the horizon, it is going to be quite interesting to see the reception Fnatic receive from the Malaysian crowd at the LAN.