It doesn’t get better for the StarLadder CIS RMR event as Akuma, the team earlier accused of cheating, sees its players leaving before the event is concluded. After losing to Natus Vincere in a rather one sided fashion, DotEsports reports, two of its players ‘J3kie’ and ‘Sensei’ are now free agents.
Evgeniyy ‘j3kie’ Sergachev took to VK.com, the popular regional social networking site to announce that he is looking for a new team, whereas Dmitriy ‘SENSEi’ Shvorak removed Akuma’s from his about sections on multiple sites.
Akuma alleged cheating & match fixing
Not a very long time ago, Natus Vincere accused Akuma of not being a fair sport after they pulled an underdog win earlier this month. This opened up pandora boxes, as multiple CIS teams followed suit and wrote open letters to Valve. This lead to multiple researchers and investigators in the community finding the Akuma players indeed suspicious.
On the allegations of match-fixing, the Esports Integrity commission found ‘substantial evidence that the CEO of Akuma (earlier referred to as Project X), Oleksandr Shyshko, had active highly suspicious bets involved with Project X vs Virtus.pro games, confirming his role on potential match-fixing.
“While ESIC has not undertaken a full investigation into the detail, extent, and validity of any particular instances of match-fixing behavior and the perpetrators of such behavior – information on hand would indicate that this is a matter worth investigating further; certainly, if ESIC did have jurisdiction, we would have opened a full investigation based on what we already know”, said Ian Smith.
The move to quit the event even before it went to playoffs appears to be highly controversial as Akuma faces team Nemiga from Belarus later today. We are yet to hear from StarLadder and Akuma on the departure of their players midway.
Picture credits: HLTV.org / StarLadder
