T1 Coach Roach fined for Chovy announcement & tampering

As the business of Esports continues to grow and expand, so does the need for regulating and monitoring the rules of the scene. That’s why the LCK secretariat released an announcement regarding the 4th and 5th Esports sanctions of 2021 on the 13th of December.

In it they state that T1 coach “Roach” and the Generation Gaming team (Gen G) are punished accordingly for their actions. How will this punishment look like and who was involved? Here is everything we know about the situation.

T1 coach Roach punished for tampering

To break it down, Kim Kang-hee also known as “Roach”, who is the coach for the T1 Challengers roster, has violated the “No Tempering” clause in the LCK rulebook. After reviewing the details, they have decided to fine him three million won(South Korean currency) and suspend him for four games. For context, that’s around 2500 US dollars. The severity of the punishment was decided through the LCK Penalty Index and “Roach” can file a complaint and ask for a retrial from the Esports Fairness Commission after 14 days.

Supposedly on November 29, the LCK Secretariat received a notice from an LCK team in which they claimed that “Roach” had contacted a player under contract with them without permission. On top of that, he also initiated contract-related talks with the player without the presence of an agent or a regulative body.

According to LCK rules, teams, employees, owners, players, and coaches can only inquire about the contract status of a player on another team through their team as a request, not as individuals. Based on the evidence the team submitted to the LCK Secretariat and the confession from T1 Roach the violation of these rules was confirmed.

Gen G punished for announcing unapproved moves

On the other hand, the LCK Secretariat has also confirmed that Gen G has also violated LCK regulations by making official roster announcements before the league’s approval. After reviewing the evidence, Gen G is also set to pay a fine of one million won or 850 US dollars, and they can submit a complaint to this ruling after 14 days.

The mentioned violations are the announcements of the Challengers League roster on December 3, in which players Winner, Quid, Peyz, and Lospa have been promoted up from the Gen G Academy roster. The reason that Gen G are getting fined for this is that they were previously warned about these kinds of violations when they announced Chovy & Lehends on November 24th.

These kinds of punishments are nothing new coming from the LCK, as they have often been criticized before for handing out fines for questionable reasons. The CEO of Gen G, Arnold weighed in on the situation on Twitter, saying it doesn’t make sense and that if Riot Korea fixed their system and did their job of approving faster, none of this would be an issue. The presidents and CEOs of T1 and C9 also showed support to his claims by joking around on Twitter, disapproving of Riot Korea’s methods.