In early November 2019, the Vietnamese League of Legends community was shaken by a series of accusations from Team Flash players against their former owner (when the team was still called SGD) for unpaid salaries. The ambiguity in team management (the former owner of SGD still retained management rights after rebranding to Team Flash) led to the situation of salary debts and delays.
In response to the accusations and “exposés” on social media, the former owner of Team Flash took aggressive countermeasures. However, the outcome for him was a 24-month ban from all tournament activities related to both Garena and Riot Games. Perhaps out of frustration, the former manager of Team Flash spread rumors that Garena would not have the right to organize the VCS Summer 2020, which was completely opposite to the truth.
A few months later, another organization, Lowkey Esports, was accused of owing player salaries, and it’s worth noting that the initial accusers were not Vietnamese players but foreign gamers who reported this organization. When the salary debt figure of Lowkey Esports was revealed, people were stunned by the amount the foreign organization owed to Vietnamese players, which reached billions of VND.
As of now, we still do not know whether Lowkey Esports has paid the aforementioned salary debts to Vietnamese players. What is known is that the entire roster of Lowkey has found a more “trustworthy” organization to join, which is Team Secret, as “Hidden Order” is also looking to expand its name beyond the DOTA2 game.
The latest salary debt case was exposed by the “drama king” Tinikun when the former coach of GAM Esports accused the organization of still owing salaries and bonuses for the entire League of Legends roster, including unpaid salaries for coach Yuna. In fact, due to the prolonged wait, Tinikun shared that he had to pay out of pocket to cover for them. This is not the first time former coach Tinikun has mentioned GAM Esports’ salary debts, as he has previously mocked the organization’s claims of “fairness and transparency”.
Currently, we still cannot ascertain the truth of the salary debt situation at GAM Esports, as former coach Tinikun claims there is a debt while GAM denies it. This drama promises to continue for a long time as there is no convincing legal evidence yet; we may have to wait for the final verdict from the VCS organizers.
