MYM Threatened Kori with Taking His Mother’s House
A few days before the beginning of the European League Championship Series (EU LCS), Meet Your Makers was left without a mid laner as Marcin “Kori” Wolski, who turned 18 on Feb. 7, departed from the team under vague circumstances.
The team went 1-3 throughout four matches with substitute Marius “Blizer300” Hæsumgaard. Wolski returned to the starting lineup just two weeks after his departure, giving an apology for his “selfish” behavior as well as paying a fine charged by the organization against him for breaching his contract.
There was a lot of speculation as to why the talented youngster had left the team so suddenly, especially with the season fast approaching. The reasons for why he departed in the first place have now come to light.
Wolski, who played last season with Supa Hot Crew, was owed several months of pay from that time. Meet Your Makers denied any responsibility for the money owed to Wolski, stating that they were to be handled by Supa Hot Crew’s owner at the time: AK3 GmbH and their CEO Sascha Ackermann.
It turns out that there are connections between AK3 and Meet Your Makers as several prominent former and current Meet Your Makers staff are employees of AK3, including Business Manager Martin Krause, Sales and Marketing Manager Cristian Manea and of course Ackermann himself, who was previously a business manager for Meet Your Makers.
While Meet Your Makers has insisted that it has nothing to do with any issues from the era of Supa Hot Crew, Wolski was not confident about facing similar issues with Meet Your Makers in the future. He also claimed that he no longer enjoyed his tenure in the gaming house and thus wanted to depart.
After Wolski informed the organization’s manager, Sebastian “Falli” Rotterdam, that he no longer wanted to play, Rotterdam became irate and attempted to intimidate Wolski in a phone call. However, Rotterdam was unaware that Wolski had recorded their conversation over the phone.
During the conversation, Rotterdam can be heard saying that replacing Wolski will cost “$50,000” per game, that his refusal to play could cost them potential sponsors, that they would all be at risk of being fired and most shockingly, that Rotterdam would make sure that Wolski’s mother “would lose the house she lives in” since she was the one who singed the contract. Rotterdam could also be heard hitting the walls and doors at various intervals during his argument with Wolski.
The recording can be listened to here (SoundCloud link). It was sent in several parts, as Wolski did not want to be caught recording their exchange, so there are some gaps and some audio interference from Wolski’s clothing.
After being confronted with the recording, Meet Your Makers CEO Khalid Naim told the Daily Dot the following:
“Concerning this recording I will react and take the necessary steps to avoid this, since something like that is not allowed and we don’t tolerate this here.”
The Daily Dot also received the following statement from Rotterdam, who apologized for his behavior:
“I admit I made a big mistake with saying this to kori. This Situation was crazy. A Player is leaving the Team one day before LCS starts. I was stressed in this situation and i agree i should not say something like this. I never said such stuff before to a player. I will offer MYM to leave the Organisation and step down from my job. The MYM Management was not aware of me saying this. I wanted to protect the other players cause the situation was looking bad for them and i made a huge mistake. MYM is not working like that it was me making a big mistake! I would like to Apologize to Kori and his mother at this point. Big Sorry!”
After this incident, Wolski outlined his concerns to Riot’s League Operations Manager Nick Allen in an email. Wolski told Allen in his message that he “felt so scared under MYM management”, adding that “especially after they promised I would lose my house”.
Wolski’s email (Click the picture to view the full picture)
A few weeks prior, Wolski was in contact with North American organization Roar about joining the team as a top laner. Wolski had a contact in former Meet Your Makers coach Nick “LS” De Cesare, who is currently working for Roar. The negotiations were quick and Wolski was convinced that he would be able to join the team who are currently competing in the North American Challenger League, outside of the LCS.
After visiting the organization in Vancouver where they are based, Wolski learned that he would be prevented from playing with his new team in any official games. Riot Games was contacted by Meet Your Makers management who asserted that Wolski had violated his contract. Wolski then learned via e-mail that he would not be allowed to play for any other team until his contract expired in January 2016.
Left with no choice from being ineligible to play for any other team, Wolski returned to Meet Your Makers. He learned that he’d be allowed to come back to the starting lineup after having a conversation with Meet Your Makers CEO Khalid Naim last Jan. 30, 2015.
It is confirmed that the organization “would have prevented him from playing LCS or Challenger Series while his contract with MYM still stood” and that they “strongly believe that contracts should be followed” based on a Skype log sent to the Daily Dot.
Naim has claimed that “Wolski’s contract was one of the better eSports contracts I’ve seen” while adding somewhat cryptically that “Esports has bad people. I’m bad too. But only if people give me reasons.”
The conversation points to the player being coached on what to say in his statement and to retract some earlier statements he had made regarding Supa Hot Crew.
“We will find a PR strategy together with Riot to make some statements about you and MYM and what happened,” Naim said. “Maybe we find a way where people don’t think bad about you because if we would post the truth from our side it would be bad and I don’t want that. I want that all think ohhh ok more important is that he is back that’s the message we will do in marketing/PR.”
It is still unclear whether Riot will intervene with sanctions against Meet Your Makers with these new revelations having come to light.
Screengrab via Riot Games/YouTube
Source: DailyDot
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