6.
One player not on the Tainted Minds roster is their former coach Inero, who reached a settlement with the team overnight. He窶冱 been released from the roster. ChuChuz recently rejoined his former team, Legacy Esports, even though he walked out on Tainted Minds with the other former players:
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The following day we went to Riot mostly out of desperation on getting things fixed as well as their office aircon ... after much discussion our minds were set on leaving, we couldn窶冲 deal with the issues anymore. The following day all the players (except Praedyth) and Nick decided it was within our best intentions to leave. I窶冦 the only one who lived in Sydney and offered for all of them to stay at my house as we had entered a legal battle and it could take some time.
Cake, ShorterACE and Nick all stayed with me for about 4 weeks before heading off and in that time through these difficult times it really bonded us as a team. It窶冱 sad it ended this way.
Like the other players, Tainted Minds did not see his contract as broken - but it窶冱 understood that Legacy Esports agreed to buy out the contract, and as a result he was allowed to join them and continue playing in the OPL. The situation is less rosy for the remaining players, with Cake and Fasffy alleging that they are still owed outstanding wages.
Just before 7:00 PM last night, Riot窶冱 Daniel Ringland issued a statement (under the username CptStupendous) saying that Riot 窶徂olds the contracts with the teams窶? but not the players, and that Riot 窶徭pent time listening to the allegations from both sides, gathering information to enable us to support the process窶?.
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窶廣ny disputes that arise from the contracts held between the organisation and its players is a matter we will always advise on, and will act upon in cases where player safety is a concern. In this instance, the players did not report any concerns around their safety, but they did report a number of concerns around their living standards we encouraged them to resolve directly with the organisation. When it was clear that was not going to happen, we set up a resolution meeting with all parties (more detail below). When the dispute continued, we suggested all parties seek legal advice.窶?
Ringland went on to write that their contract 窶徘rovides guidelines around housing occupancy, not general living standards, these are set in the contracts between teams and players窶?. He added that 窶彗t no point were we made aware that players were not receiving the Riot stipend窶? until March 7, and that Tainted Minds had told them 窶徼hat as of 16 March all payments to players have been made窶?.
One of the players confirmed with me shortly after the statement窶冱 release that they still hadn窶冲 been paid outstanding fees for December, or their stipend from the third and fourth weeks of the OPL. Cake also refuted Riot窶冱 statement by saying the company had been was aware of the issues since January, and then proceeding to post screenshots of emails showing that Riot had been informed of the players, manager, and head coach窶冱 desire to leave Tainted Minds, as early as January 1