FPX Revert Decision To Hold Ukrainian Players' Wages Following Backlash
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the brutal bombing of civilian cities, have taken their toll on esports as an industry over the last few weeks, with many competitions being halted and others continuing without the inclusion of some historical Russian organisations. However, as Ukrainian men continue to be recruited for the national armed forces, or struggle to be evacuated from their homes, one esports team has recently been heavily criticised for proposing that they will hold the pay of a Ukrainian players wages until he can return to playing for the team again.
FunPlus Phoenix, a Chinese organisation that host a European VALORANT roster, has recently been reported to be withholding the pay of their in-game-leader Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow, who cannot compete for the roster after being forced to flee his home following the barrage of assaults by the Russian military.
FPX Reported To Have Considered Holding Ange1's Pay
With both BLAST and ESL having banned any Russian-based organisations from playing in their events - with ESL extending an invitation to Russian players, as long as they denounce any links to their organisations, namely Virtus.pro - VALORANT fans are waiting patiently as Riot games launch a soft restart to the EMEA regional Challengers events, but have yet to weigh in on how they will allow Russian orgs and teams to participate.
With fans divided as to whether they would prefer Riot to allow world championship runners-up, Gambit Esports, and other Russian/Belarusian EMEA players to play whilst ANGE1 cannot, or whether the developers would be doing him a disservice and should follow BLAST in prohibiting the participation, they have all united behind ANGE1 as his agent revealed FPX wanted to withhold his pay.
Taking to Twitter, ANGE1's agent, Jérôme Coupez, claimed that there is one team that is unwilling to pay the salary of a player in Ukraine, with all fingers pointing towards FPX.
Click to enlargeFPX Revert Decision To Hold ANGE1's Pay
However, with the community furious, it now appears that FPX has reverted their decision, as Coupez said, "the situation has been resolved and FPX will pay the full salary of the player for as long as needed, without asking him to play."
Coupez also claimed that "the CEO of FPX did apologize in person to us," although the organisation has yet to make a public statement on the matter.
Whilst ANGE1 is not able to participate, the VCT tour has restarted without the inclusion of Russian-based Gambit, for the meantime, while FPX fielding substitute player Kamil "baddyG" Graniczka as a replacement.
FPX's next fixture will see them face Team Liquid on March 12.