When it comes to maintaining decorum, Riot Games isn’t joking around. The League of Legends EMEA competitive scene just got hot side-eye from Riot over unprofessional behavior, with warnings raining down on players and coaches for both the LEC and ERL leagues.
On Jan. 5, Riot’s publicly accessible EMEA Penalty Tracker revealed that 12 new warnings were issued to LEC players and coaches and several more for ERLs league members. All warnings cited “conduct unbecoming of an LEC team member” as the reason, but despite the transparency of the tracker, no additional information has been provided about the specific incidents behind these penalties.
Dot Esports has reached out to Riot for further clarification on the warnings, and will update this article as more details become available.
But ahead of an official reply from Riot on the matter, journalist Brieuc “LEC Wooloo” Seeger shared some insight into the situation on Twitter, noting that some of the flagged players attributed the penalties to their solo queue behavior on League. Wooloo remarked that while some actions could be considered unprofessional, nothing particularly extreme seemed to have occurred.
This isn’t the first time Riot has enforced professionalism within the competitive scene. In 2020, Fnatic was fined 10K Euros (approximately 11K USD) for failing to meet a key organizational mark submission deadline. Astralis also faced a 5,000 Euro fine the same year for conduct unbecoming of a team manager and delays in paying team members.
These warnings highlight Riot’s proactive stance in creating an inclusive and respectful environment across all levels of its competitive ecosystem. However, while issuing warnings is an important step in maintaining professionalism, it would benefit the community to have a clearer understanding of the types of actions Riot condemns in a professional setting — even if these behaviors are outlined in the competition’s rulebook in details.
Published: Jan 16, 2025 02:16 pm