ESL to evaluate conflicts of interest from Road to Rio participants

ESL is seeking clarification on any conflicts of interest present at the Road to Rio, the first Regional Major Ranking (RMR) CS:GO event that will grant points for the ESL One Rio Major in November, the tournament organizer said today in a brief Twitter post.

ESL’s response comes 24 hours after HLTV and Brazilian website Globo Esporte reported that Valve would not immediately act upon conflicts of interest between the participating teams in ESL One: Road to Rio.

“We are currently seeking clarification on and evaluating the conflicts of interest reported by the participants of ESL One: Road to Rio,” ESL said. “Decisions on further action will depend on the nature of the additional information that is disclosed.”

Valve shared declarations of interest from 19 teams competing in ESL One: Road to Rio with HLTV. These documents confirmed that there are close ties between MIBR and Yeah Gaming, two teams that are facing each other today in North America’s Group B.

Yeah, one of the most prestigious Brazilian tags in the 2000s, was relaunched in 2018 by several people, including MIBR’s manager and coach Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia and entry-fragger TACO. These two, however, allegedly don’t make any decisions at Yeah.

Immortals Gaming Club (IGC), which is MIBR’s parent company, pays an annual fee to Yeah, which holds the option to acquire two of Yeah’s players per year. MIBR’s in-game leader FalleN also was involved in Yeah’s project at the beginning but cut ties along the way.

The potential conflicts of interest expand beyond this, though. Wilton “zews” Prado, Evil Geniuses’ head coach and former MIBR coach, owns a 25-percent stake in Yeah. Evil Geniuses and Yeah can face each other if they both make it out of the group stage. FaZe’s coldzera also owns a percentage, but Yeah and FaZe likely wouldn’t play against each other apart from at the ESL One Rio Major—if both teams qualify.

Another potential conflict of interest is present in ESL One: Road to Rio Europe. Legendary player GeT_RiGhT, who now plays for Dignitas, owns a minority stake in his former team, Ninjas in Pyjamas. The two Swedish teams will face each other on Friday, April 24.

Valve, CS:GO‘s developer, told HLTV that the sole requirement to play in ESL One: Road to Rio was to disclose existing conflicts of interests publicly so “the community can have an opportunity to discuss them.”

This contradicts what Valve said in 2018, though, ahead of the FACEIT London Major. At that time, the game developer said that “teams and players should not have any financial interest in the success of any team that they are competing against.”