Riot Games today released a ruling over allegations of poaching undertaken by North American professional League of Legends team Counter Logic Gaming.
It was alleged that the owner of Counter Logic Gaming, former professional player George ‘HotshotGG’ Georgallidis, approached William ‘Scarra’ Li and expressed a desire to work together in the future. Riot investigated, finding evidence that members of CLG had indeed approached Scarra in an attempt to convince him to leave his substitute player position at Dignitas and join CLG in the role of Head Coach.
This put CLG in violation of League of Legends Championship Series rule 10.2.12 which states: “No Team Member or Affiliate of a team may solicit, lure, or make an offer of employment to any Team Member who is signed to any LCS team, nor encourage any such Team Member to breach or otherwise terminate a contract with said LCS team. Violations of this rule shall be subject to penalties, at the discretion of LCS officials.”
CLG violated this rule by approaching Scarra directly, rather than Dignitas management to secure the player.
On top of the $10,000 USD fine CLG have also been restricted from fielding Scarra as Head Coach for the first 3 weeks of the 2015 LCS Spring split. Riot has shown in the past that they don’t take rule violations lightly, coming down hard on players and teams who step outside the LCS rulesets.
For more information on the ruling, including the full investigation and context, check out the full announcement.
What do you think of the ruling? Is it to harsh, or should Riot continue to slam rule breaches to ensure a fair playing field in the LCS? Let us know in the comments below.
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