TSM Leena gets candid in OfflineTV Podcast about Doublelift Controversy

Cover image and thumbnail courtesy Leena Xu Twitter

• TSM President Leena Xu explains her perspective about the controversy with Doublelift.
• Talks about TSM recruitment process.

Leena Xu, President of TSM, talked about fame, love and controversy in a podcast with OfflineTV. She spilled the beans on multiple topics including how TSM recruits, her relationship with Doublelift and the Riot investigation into the trade. The podcast was conducted with Pokimane, Fed and DisguisedToast.

Talking about the Doublelift Drama, Leena said, “It hasn’t been a secret that Peter and I are dating, we have been dating for a while now”. “We can’t really stop what the fans are going to say. I think it is hypocritical that they’re not respectful about the situation. They didn’t reach out to any of us for comment and they just want to start throwing accusations around." 

She elaborated that Riot had done an investigation before the trade was approved and that everyone on TSM had participated and cooperated. Leena further states that it’s ridiculous that people aren’t still satisfied even after Riot came out and said it was compliant with the ruleset. She further elaborated saying the details of the investigation were pretty confidential but multiple teams from Riot reached out to Steve Arhancet, Co-CEO of Team Liquid about TSM picking up Doublelift. 

“If they had a problem with my relationship with Peter, they should have voiced it months ago, when we first became public about the situation. I think that it’s just convenient right now to bring it up, to stop the trade from happening.”, she said. Talking about the conflict of interest she said that it was an internal liability that TSM would be taking on, of having two important people date. 

About Poaching and Conflict of Interest

Pokimane added that if anything it would have been more of a conflict of interest if he was on another team than on the same one. Regarding this Leena mentions that Doublelift had a one-on-one with TL's Steve, disclosing the relationship before it was even public. As for the poaching allegation, she said that “We worked with Steve on the deal. Steve even had a video come out (sic) where he talked about how he approached Peter, they both knew that this is a possibility.” She clarified that Steve had willingly worked with them through the trade. Leena mentioned they really pushed for the deal to happen because members like Bjergsen really wanted to play with Doublelift again and there were a lot of team issues that would be solved if he comes on board.  

If there were any poaching and tampering there would be an injured party, in this case, Team Liquid, who would approach Riot to get justice. But Steve worked with TSM throughout the trade and Team Liquid seemed pretty committed to moving on with Edward “Tactical” Ra. 

Talking about recruiting, Leena mentioned that “You can look at other scenes, pro players from other scenes that didn’t really make it in their original scene. Like the Valorant case, CS: GO players that didn’t have the most success or they’re probably going to jump over”. She continued that they generally look for people with some kind of competitive experience or skill but they do hire content creators. “Greek(godx) wasn’t hired for his talent” she laughs when asked if they exclusively hire based on skill level.

Catch the full podcast:

Thorin has responded to TSM Leena's claims in a video.