Brazilian League of Legends player Júlia “Mayumi” Nakamura has sued her former team INTZ for mistreatment and contract irregularities, according to Brazilian outlet START.
She announced that she left the team on May 25 without stepping onto the Brazilian Championship stage. “I’m no longer a part of INTZ,” Mayumi said. “I’ll pursue my path with streams and personal projects. I have no concrete plans for the future, but I’m currently a free agent.”
INTZ, on the other hand, didn’t announce her departure from the team. She reportedly filed a lawsuit against the team on May 26.
Mayumi was signed at the same time as Tainá “Yatsu” Santos in August 2019 when she was 17 years old. She only played live with INTZ in the ABCDE Super League at the end of 2019.
Her play during a game as Nautilus support went viral. Highlights of her individual performance surpassed 13,000 likes and 800 comments on Chinese social media website Weibo. She was ranked Challenger when INTZ signed her and expected to compete with the team in the national league.
Substitute mid laner Yatsu also previously signed with the team but didn’t compete in official matches with INTZ either and is now considered as an inactive player on the roster.
Mayumi’s lawyer claimed in the lawsuit that her role on the team changed from competing to advertising around mid-February. She reportedly felt this way because she was no longer being called in for scrims or receiving counsel from the team’s coach.
Mayumi reportedly no longer had a desk or computer at INTZ’s gaming house and was excluded from team meetings. This resulted in several weeks of inactivity. She reported that she didn’t get an answer from the staff when she reached out to voice her concerns.
Her lawyer also said her contract was actually only used to “maximize its own earning by exploiting her image” and to “turn her into a poster girl.” This reportedly resulted in her not taking part in training sessions and made her feel “humiliated” by being “only called for advertising actions, because of her gender or age.”
The lawsuit also focuses on contract irregularities, including a clause that reportedly made her liable for disproportionate monetary compensation in case of unilateral termination of the contract. This could cost over $63,000 (320,000 Brazilian Real), according to START, in case of contract termination by the company. That reportedly amounts to every bit of salary she earned while working for INTZ. Since she terminated the contract, she filed the lawsuit due to not being able to pay the termination fine.
Despite the fact that the contract was signed in July 2019, INTZ considered her starting date with the organization to be in January 2020. In addition, it was reportedly a fixed-term contract set for 28 months, which exceeds the two-year limit set by Brazil’s labor laws. Brazilian Dota 2 team PaiN Gaming was condemned on the same legal grounds last month.
As a result, Mayumi and her lawyer are pursuing the cancellation of INTZ’s contract and the payment of monetary compensation for the months she worked without being registered as an INTZ player and was, therefore, paid less, as well as severance pay and indemnity for moral harassment. If the contract is considered valid, they claim the payment of the legal termination fee to be the employer’s fault.
A hearing has been scheduled for July 21. INTZ said all contractual obligations were met and it had the intention of putting Mayumi in matches in the second stage of the 2020 CBLoL, which started on June 6.
Mayumi told START she won’t comment on the situation until the judicial proceedings have ended.
Published: Jun 12, 2020 11:44 am