Seven teams handed ultimatum by Valve

Valve confirmed that seven teams participating in ESL One: Road to Rio have a conflict of interest. This was reported by portal HLTV.org with reference to an email sent to a specific list of clubs.

According to the published information, Valve employees identified a number of commercial ties that threaten fair competition in the majors. Parties need to resolve conflicts of interest before the start of ESL One Rio 2020, which will run in November this year, to avoid disqualification.

Earlier journalists expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that ESL and Valve approved the participation of MIBR and Yeah in qualifying for the major, despite the presence of business relations between the teams. In particular, Epitacio "TACO" de Melo and Ricardo "dead" Sinigaglia are listed as co-owners of the Brazilian organization, while Immortals Gaming Club, which owns the MIBR brand, is entitled to "purchase no more than two Yeah players per year at the agreed price. Marcelo "coldzera" David of FaZe and Wilton "zews" Prado of Evil Geniuses also own part of the shares of Yeah, which leads to a link between the four clubs.

The other two cases relate to IGC General Manager Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen and Dignitas player Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund. The first is a shareholder of ENCE and the second is a shareholder of Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Recall that two years ago Valve introduced a rule for tournaments under its auspices, which prohibits simultaneous participation of several teams with one direct or indirect control. In November 2019, the company obliged the participants of the majors to publicly report on cooperation, which implies a conflict of interest.