Michael McGhee tries to solve the mystery of the latest dispute to crop up in the world of CS:S, this time between organisation RedLine and two of their former players.

Much has been said about the supposed underhand and shady dealings of the men behind the Danish event The eXperience. Regularly claimed to be the best event on the yearly calender by most of the European elite the TeX events were always a spectacle to behold. Held in the Danish city of Roskilde and boasting very healthy prize pots they ran a number of yearly tournaments without a hitch, their 2009 event though proved to be, as of yet, the last one they have hosted and in the following two years their name was dragged through the mud, the reason? Not paying prize money.

In any competition in any walk of life it's a cardinal sin to withhold prize payments from the teams or players who earned it, yet in e-sports it's an extremely regular occurrence as competitors are made to wait months and sometimes years for what is rightfully theirs. The eXperience will be written down in folklore as one of the culprits after missing several deadlines which they had set to pay out the prize money they owed. The man behind the event, Jens Christian Ringdal had always stated his intention to pay the entire amount owed as soon as possible, however as the months - and soon years - passed many believed that they would never see it.

Just before the i-series weekend that very same man announced the fantastic news that every penny owed by TeX had been paid to the rightful winners and their hands were now clean of the matter, with plans to host more events in future. Case closed. Right? Well, the case was closed, locked away and forgotten about until yours truly received a message late last night from two, rather dejected and angry CS:S players who requested my help in exposing what they perceived as some more shady dealing.

This time it wasn't from the people behind The eXperience events. It does seem though that the money paid out has carried its curse all the way to France and nestled itself deep in the underbelly of one of the countries biggest organisations: RedLine. The French team that represented Redline in the past managed to secure their place in the European elite with wins at both TeX 2008 and TeX 2009 - the first team to retain their crown. Their win at TeX 2009 came as a shock to everyone after some very lackluster performances online in the run-up to the event.

After a solid start in the group stages the French team - replacing VeryGames at the top of the French CS:S scene whilst the big shots were on vacation - overcame Imba Unknowns, Team Dignitas, mTw and Vitriolic to secure a spot in the grand final. They came up against Team Dignitas once more in the grand final and after some superb play swept the British team aside to retain their TeX crown and take the €5,625 first place prize. The result took most people by surprise given the fact that RedLine had made significant changes to their lineup not long before the event, bringing in both Matthieu 'akamatt' Brouri and Victor "victorztw" Matyjasik - the two players who have now gone public with their issues regarding their prize money.

Last week the players were mortified to find out that they would be paid only half of the prize money they assumed they were owed. After the agreed 20% of the winnings was taken by the Redline organisation they were left with €4,500 to be split between 5 people, which amounted to €900 each, however the players were offered €450 instead of €900. The other half of their winnings was to be split between their then manager NiaK and the teams captain Kevin 'Ex6TenZ' Droolans, contrary to what the players claimed was agreed between themselves and the organisation when they first made the decision to join. RedLine's reasoning for cutting the players winnings and distributing it to the duo was that both NiaK and Ex6TenZ played a bigger part in the teams success than the two aforementioned players - therefor they deserved to earn more from the winnings than the dejected duo.

The details of the cash breakdown was posted by the organisation on their Facebook page. Afterwards we caught up with Marc 'virp' Corban, the teams manager who gave us the following statement:

We have managed “pro players” since 2006, and we've wanted for 2 years now change the way we were paying wages/prize money in a more equal way. If you take the example of any sports team, Kobe Bryant do not get the same salary as Lamar Odom (Lakers), much like the gap in wages/prize money between Wayne Rooney and other Manchester United players. Why? More talent, more responsibilities, more business for the organization (We rented more Redline servers in the past with the image of Ex6TenZ and Shokkk than with akamatt for example.)

We wanted to share unequally the cash price for 2 reasons:

1) Because some players deserved more than others.
2) Because CSS is a 5v5 game + a manager.

This is how we shared it - €4,500 divided by 10 = €450

We gave some ratios to each player + the manager:

Ex6tenz: 2.5
Shokkk: 2.0
crZ: 2.0
Niak: 1.5
Akamatt: 1
Victorzz: 1

Ex6tenz was the Leader and a key player for the team, Shokkk & crZ were also key players for redline team. akamatt & victorz are both good guys and they did their job properly, thanks again to them.

Ex6tenz: €1,125
Shokkk: €900
crZ: €900
NiaK: €675
akamatt: €450
victorzz: €450

At first both akamatt and victorz assumed it was a joke. After finding out that the Redline management were in fact serious about their decision to strip them of half of their prize money they confronted Redline manager Marc 'virp' Corban to ask him why he had made such a decision, the conversation can be found Here. An English translation of the chat can be found below:

akamatt: Are you fucking with us?
Virp: Sorry?
akamatt: The ratio story, I thought that was a joke as I said
akamatt: victorz is telling me you're actually doing it ?
akamatt: Are you crazy or?
Virp: No, it's not a joke
akamatt: That's not how it works
Virp: It works the way we decide
Virp: Redline paid you everything
Virp: In Belgium and Danmark
akamatt: First of all, I joined Redline because the deal was that Redline would pay for travel and hotel
Virp: You would be at home it would be the same
akamatt: And that redline would take 20% of any cash prize
akamatt: I didn't try to join you, you went looking for me
akamatt: You're calling yourself professional and you're doing that?
Virp: Yes
akamatt: Seriously, I won €900, not €450, since when does the manager earn a share of the prize?
akamatt: Even more without agreeing first
Virp: We didn't want to tell you about it before receiving the prize
akamatt: I know you don't like victorz and me as players
akamatt: But let VG pay NiaK
Virp: I dont have favorite players
akamatt: stealing from us like that, that's unreal
Virp: I don't have any reason to favour Ex6TenZ or NiaK
Virp: They are my competitors
Virp: I just took the more fair decision
akamatt: Not at all
akamatt: I didn't see NiaK take his mouse
Virp: Without NiaK, you don't go through the group stages
Virp: You don't even get on the plane
akamatt: Same goes for Ex6TenZ, Shokkk and crZ but I don't see their shares diluted.
Virp: Sorry but it's like that
Virp: we wanted to establish salaries
Virp: With the same method
akamatt: That wasn't the deal when I joined redline
akamatt: Don't even try to pretend that's fair
akamatt: You're fucking us, dont even try to make me swallow it
Virp: Dude
Virp: You want your €450?
Virp: Better not lame in public
Virp: About all this
Virp: Do i need to make you sign a paper or can we wire you the money?
akamatt: Since I can't do shit about it, wire the €450.

Given the apparent threat should they go public the players were afraid to let us know about the incident until they had received their €450 "share" of the prize purse. Once it was paid they contacted us requesting that we publish the details and let people see what had happened. After finding out the details we contacted the teams then manager NiaK to ask for a statement regarding the incident, to which he replied:

I wasn't consulted by redLine for this decision, as well as Ex6TenZ and we aren't at all implicated in the decisions of the redline staff now. So no comment.

We later sought to find out more information from the man who made the decision, Virp, and were given the following statement when we questioned the organisations motives.

We have nothing to hide, we wrote in public all details. I can understand why victorzz and akamatt are complaining, they are good guys, but I just want to remind them that we gave them a chance to play competitively in CS:S, we paid all travel, all accommodation, they were only playing in mixes and finishing top4 in EPS finals before joining redline. Where else than in Redline did they play competitively?

akamatt & victorz had 2 European Major CS:S events + a bootcamp + winning €450 each and mainly having the chance to learn how to play CS:S with players such as Ex6tenZ, crZ & Shokkk, along with the excellent management of NiaK. I do not think that a lot of people will cry for them. That decision was just the more logical one for us.

When questioned on a possible breech of contract he refuted that the players had signed contracts and also stated that they hadn't even discussed the matter of prize money or winnings when they joined the organisation - something both akamatt and victorz say that they did, and were told that the organisation would receive 20% of winnings and the rest would be split evenly between the five players in the team. We later asked him why he decided to threaten the players, stating that if they would like to receive their €450, they should keep the details out of the public eye, to which he replied:

I wanted to say in public how we shared the cash prize because for me this is a good road for other organisations to take (paying the manager). The prize differences betwen players is maybe more difficult and the rest of redline staff wanted to keep it private, I respected that. If it wasn't kept private who would be flamed? NiaK, Ex6TenZ, Shokkk? They did nothing, it was Redline's decision.

When pressed once more on why he felt the need to cut their prize money and offer it to people who, in Redline's eyes had a "bigger impact on the teams success", he said the following:

They had a much bigger impact, we could have replaced victorz or akamatt with 20-30 French players without any problems. NiaK and Ex6TenZ made them good in a team, where have we seen them succeed afterwards? victorz maybe, akamatt no.

He then insisted once more that there was no agreement between Redline and the two players, but when pressed he revealed that victorz had indeed signed a contract with the organisation before stating that legally all contracts are now over and realistically the organisation could do whatever they wanted. Neither side of the argument have produced a copy of the contract that was apparently signed however it's clear that both sides are refusing to budge on their version of events.

If we want e-sports to grow and be taken seriously then we must strive to change the way things are done. All too often people are - including myself - quick to criticize players for lack of professionalism when it comes to transfers between teams and general behavior. Yet it's difficult to expect players to remain professional when the organisations which they represent begin to act in a similar fashion. It's clear that some bad decisions have been made by people who should know better, why those decisions have been made remain somewhat of a mystery, but at least what has happened has been laid out for all to see.