Galatasaray Esports banned from TCL 2020 Spring Split for payment failures
On December 28, Riot Games Turkey released an official statement banning Galatasaray Esports from participating in the Turkish Championship League 2020 Spring Split after the org failed to pay salaries to players in summer 2019. The split will continue as normal with nine teams instead of 10.
Click to enlargeRiot Turkey previously stated in an article on December 11 that Galatasaray had until December 27 to fulfil all contractual payment obligations between players and coaches in order to participate in the TCL 2020 Spring Split. Even if payments were made within the time frame, they were to receive a roster transfer penalty.
Former Galatasaray mid laner, now current Griffin head coach, Lee “GBM” Chang-seok went public on Twitter on December 1 to expose Galatasaray owner Erom Özmandıracı for ignoring his requests for updates on missing payments. Özmandıracı responded to GBM’s Tweet claiming that he was notified on October 17 that 50% of his total salary owed was paid off, with the last part pending.
It was later revealed by GBM in the thread that jungler Choi “BalKhan” Hyeon-jin had also been waiting to receive any payment since the month of August.
Click to enlargeIn an exclusive interview with Inven Global on December 2nd, GBM stated that after joining the team in May, he received his first check in August, totalling roughly the equivalent of one and a half months’ worth of salary. In the middle of October, Galataray notified GBM that the owed payments had been delayed and ignored his messages before saying that the issue would be resolved in the middle of November.
Click to enlargeHe went on to say that mid laner Dan "Godbro" Van Vo and support Barış "Tolerant" Çepnioğlu, who’d left the team before the 2019 Summer Split, hadn’t received payment for eight months.
According to the recent statement, Galatasaray's ability to participate in the 2020 Summer Split will depend on their ability to take the proper steps to resolve this issue within the guidelines set by Riot. More details on the situation will be released in the future.
Main image via Galatasaray org
