FURIA is under fire in the Counter-Strike community after details about the organization’s former contracts for its CS:GO squad were revealed today in a report by Jarek “DeKay” Lewis.
The players were reportedly receiving a monthly salary of $1,400, a small fee compared to their $200,000 buyout, according to Ryan Fairchild, an esports lawyer who consulted with DeKay.
“Buyouts are harder to opine on as they can incorporate factors beyond salary,” Fairchild said. “But a $200,000 buyout compared to $1,400 in monthly compensation, to me, is ridiculous and oppressive.”
But what really alarmed Fairchild is the percentage of tournament winnings that the players were getting. FURIA was taking 60 percent, while the players split the remaining 40 percent.
“The prize pool split is among the worst, if not the worst I’ve ever seen,” Fairchild said. “I can definitively say that. I rarely see a prize pool split, particularly in a Valve game, where the players/coach/manager don’t split 90 percent of the prize pool.”
This raises concerns about the conditions of FURIA’s newest five-year contracts, which the team signed on June 21 after the organization received offers for two of its players. The fact that the players signed five-year deals was already generating a ton of discussion on the CS:GO subreddit.
André Akkari, FURIA’s co-owner, said that the new contracts are supposed to bring better commercials, sponsorships, and merchandise deals for the team and that’s why the players signed for so long.
Akkari also said that the new buyouts wouldn’t be huge, just adjusted. “Contracts are not made to lock people, or at least shouldn’t be,” Akkari said. “It’s made to define, clarify the relationships in the next years.”
Dot Esports has reached out to FURIA for an official statement, but the organization didn’t respond by the time of publication.
Update June 24 8:57pm CT: FURIA Esports released a Twitlonger statement, which said the contracts DeKay used in his report “don’t correspond to [its] older contract or the newest one.” FURIA also said its players are paid more than $1,400 per month.
