While the news about GAM Esports “selling” Zeros is still fresh, former coach Dương “Tinikun” Nguyễn Duy Thanh just recently posted a cryptic status referring to his old team, seemingly related to Zeros’ salary issues.
Notably, the “professional environment and transparent transfers” that Tinikun refers to here is part of the latest announcement from GAM Esports regarding the agreement for other teams to approach transfers concerning the three players Blazes, Slay, and Zeros.
It is possible that Tinikun is hinting at his former team’s salary issues concerning Zeros while he was playing for GAM. Or it can be understood that he is indirectly revealing that his former team – GAM Esports has yet to realize a “professional environment” due to not paying Zeros’ salary.
Furthermore, it can be seen in the Messenger chat log between Zeros and Tinikun, this top laner even mentioned, “if reporting to Riot is ‘free’, right?”.
If GAM Esports is indeed late on salary payments, then this question can be interpreted as:
“If I report to Riot Games about being owed salary, will my contract be released?”, meaning that Zeros would become a free agent (if Riot adjudicates that GAM breached the contract by not paying salary on time, the contract between GAM and Zeros would be voided), allowing him the freedom to seek a new team without having to go through GAM as per the team’s announcement.
Zeros left GAM Esports at the beginning of the 2020 season to seek opportunities to compete in the LPL, but subsequently, the complex pandemic situation in the country and some other professional factors caused his “China Advance” plan to falter.
In the second half of the 2020 VCS Spring season, Zeros returned to GAM but did not achieve notable success. However, the announcement from this team about putting Zeros on the transfer list still surprised many fans, as for over a year, the player nicknamed “Ma Vương” has remained one of the two brightest names that the reigning VCS runner-up possesses in their lineup, playing an irreplaceable role in GAM’s campaigns to conquer domestic and international tournaments.