A major controversy has hit Riot’s Oceanic Pro League, with a dispute between Tainted Minds and its former players continuing to escalate.
Tainted Minds (TM) players members Tristan ‘Cake’ Côté-Lalumière, Ryan ‘ShorterACE’ Nget, Aaron ‘ChuChuZ’ Bland, and Andrew ‘Rosey’ Rose, alongside coach Nick Inero and manager ‘Fasffy’ (who has asked not to be mentioned by her real name) left the organisation back in February, though this past week has shed more light on their reasons why.
Goodbye pic.twitter.com/eXse29WxCh
— Ryan (@ShorterACE) February 13, 2017
According to lengthy statements by Inero and Fasffy, the February walkouts were over long-standing grievances with Tainted Minds management. The home that TM’s OPL team was to stay in was furnished with low-quality furniture, PCs that weren’t suited for competitive play or practice, sporadic internet and was incredibly dirty.
For a period of two months, former players allege similar stories about problems faced. Bland used a TwitLonger post to detail that “we were forced to practice at internet cafes” due to inconsistent internet. This practice continued, even relocating to a second internet cafe, until “it was getting ridiculous,” Bland said. “Our Opal cards (public transport card) were getting expensive. We lived in a gaming house only to sleep in intense heat and wake up to unplayable internet.”
In a TwitLonger post of her own, Fasffy detailed the inadequacies of the gaming house that TM had provided to her team. She writes of filthy conditions, a meagre budget and a lack of essentials required for a professional gaming team.
“I have our top laner arriving next week,” Fasffy began in an email to Riot shared in the post. “He is only 17, so he will be driving down with his parents. They’re supposed to arrive and the house isn’t ready. There are boxes everywhere that I can’t get rid of due to lack of council bins (which cannot keep up with the rubbish produced by the house). At this stage, he will not have a computer.”
Côté-Lalumière goes one step further detailing problems in a TwitLonger post of his own, even linking to a Google Docs document with chat logs, legal documents and more. His allegations mirror that made by other teammates. According to the group, Tainted Minds administration repeatedly ignored or downgraded queries for repair or equipment.
Côté-Lalumière continued to allege that Riot agreed “to set up a mediation session with the management of Tainted Minds to help resolve the issues we had been facing.” He then alleges that a number of appointments were then simply postponed or cancelled, benefiting Riot and Letsplay.live Managing Director, John McRae, who’d invested in the team.
Côté-Lalumière also drew attention to the fact Riot had allowed Tainted Minds to place 14 players on its official roster, even though official rules only allow for 10.
Riot itself remained quiet on the issues at hand and its involvement as mediator until late last week.
Releasing a statement called, “On Tainted Minds”, Riot’s Daniel ‘CptStupendous’ Ringland said, “we have been working with both parties to reach a mutual resolution.”
Ringland detailed problems Riot encountered in setting up meetings, saying, they were “moved twice; the first time because we believed that rather than jump into a formal process… we encouraged the players the team to try a different tack to reach a mutually beneficial result.
“When it was clear that those discussions would not net a positive result, we set a date. Unfortunately not all parties needed were available, and therefore we had to move it back one week.”
On the roster saga, Ringland said, “we allowed Tainted Minds to temporarily add more than 10 players on its roster in the public [facing] Global Contract Database. The reasoning behind the allowance is two-fold; firstly to allow those involved in the dispute time to reach a solution, and secondly to allow the organisation to field a temporary team for week 5 of the OPL.”
Ringland then blamed a flaw in the Database meant that a later update removing players was not timestamped.
Ringland admitted Riot was not “as proactive with our communication as we should have been,” adding “we could’ve at least acknowledged the dispute earlier to preface some of what happened next.”
Yesterday, the administrators of Tainted Minds itself released a statement about the affair, saying that “issues arose with… [the team’s] gaming house, but by the time of mediation with Riot on February 6, 2017, it appeared the majority of the issues had been resolved, although a few minor problems remained.”
The statement challenges a number of allegations brought against it by Fasffy, Côté-Lalumière, including the selection of the house, quality of internet and acquisition of computer equipment. They detail timely solutions and smooth processing, only made difficult by the likes of Côté-Lalumière and Fasffy.
Tainted Mind’s statement brought about new TwitLonger posts from Côté-Lalumière and Fasffy.
In the end, it’s still unclear exactly what has transpired over at the Tainted Minds gaming house. At the time of writing Rose remains on the team, Fasffy has been terminated by Tainted Minds, Côté-Lalumière remains on the team’s roster but is fighting for damages, Inero and Nget have been released and Bland’s contract has been bought up by Legacy Esports.
We’ll continue to update this story as it develops.
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