NAVI COO Denies YEKINDAR Transfer Rumors to Complete CS:GO Roster

Natus Vincere (NAVI) has been cut down to a four-player lineup following the departure of Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov from its active CS:GO roster. This decision was surprisingly not related to his performance, instead the Ukrainian organization cited the reason being "high reputational risks for the club".

While the community had braced itself for changes being introduced to the NAVI CS:GO team, just a single player departing from the team was not exactly what they had thought would happen.

Soon after this change was made rumors surfaced that NAVI was targeting Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis to complete its CS:GO roster. This was being discussed as the most probable signing across the community, but just when things were getting interesting, Oleksii "xaoc" Kucherov - COO of NAVI, came forward to deny the possibility of any such transfer taking place.

YEKINDAR's rumored transfer to NAVI as a replacement for Boombl4 denied by Xaoc

A lot of discussions were taking place across the CS:GO community following the benching of Boombl4. While a lot of player names were thrown in the mix, the one that stood out the most was YEKINDAR's.

Despite it not making a lot of sense to bring him on board with the current set of players, many theories were made about how NAVI could make it work. However, all these rumors were laid to rest yesterday on 30^th May when xaoc came forward to state the following via a Tweet, "I refute that we [NAVI] are negotiating with YEKINDAR".

YEKINDAR is a great prospect who was recently benched by Virtus.pro (VP) due to a number of reasons, some of which are related to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The 22-year-old was reportedly under a lot of pressure since he was a Latvian player playing for a Russian esports organization.

Unfortunately, his role does not align with that of Boombl4's who is a good rifler but his main skill set lies in leading a team within the server. On the other hand, YEKINDAR is one of the most aggressive and talented entry fraggers who has not been tested as a shotcaller so far.

Further, VP is an esports organization that is linked to having alleged ties with the Russian government, a claim that is denied by them. Being a Ukrainian organization, NAVI might not be inclined to carry out any sort of business deal or transaction with them, even if they would have wanted to sign YEKINDAR.

During a recent interview with Dexerto, esports journalist Duncan "Thorin" Shields had reflected upon how NAVI should not conduct any business with VP, "It’s an utter violation of everything they stand for.”

NAVI was not able to acquire visas for competing in the IEM Dallas 2022 and will be next seen in action at the BLAST Premier: Spring Final which is scheduled to take place from 15^th to 19^th June in Lisbon.

They are in a race against time to finalize their CS:GO roster before the arrival of this tournament, with the current roster looking as follows:

• Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev

• Denis "electroNic" Sharipov

• Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy

• Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi

• Andrii "B1ad3" Horodenskyi - [Coach]