CS:GO Tournament in Eastern Europe Fails to Pay Winners
Last year’s World Championships, one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments in Eastern Europe, still hasn’t paid out the winnings to the competitors.
The tournament, hosted by E-Frag, took place in Serbia’s capital city, Belgrade, and featured national teams from eight different countries. It aimed to be the first large-scale tournament of its kind in CS:GO.
Although E-Frag organized the event, it was sponsored by American streaming service Azubu. According to the agreement between the two companies, E-Frag would set up the LAN while Azubu would provide the prize funds for the teams.
Casper “cadiaN” Møller, a competitor from Denmark, recently tweeted that he still hasn’t received his winnings from the tournament, which concluded nine months ago. Danish esports outlet Dust2.dk reported on cadiaN’s situation and reached out to E-Frag for a comment.
E-Frag responded by stating that Azubu has not yet paid the agreed-upon amount and has avoided communication with the organizer. Only after lawyers got involved, Azubu finally responded.
“After they [Azubu] refused to pay us, we sought legal assistance from California in order to talk to them. We’re hardly the first to have an issue with Azubu withholding payments, there are many stories of other organizers facing the same issues,” E-Frag told Dust2.dk.
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When E-Frag’s lawyers finally reached Azubu, the streaming service could not fulfill E-Frag’s demand for full compensation and instead offered a significantly lower amount. E-Frag found this odd, considering they had a legally binding contract with Azubu that stated the full amount would be paid. E-Frag also pointed out Azubu’s recent purchase of Austria-based streaming service Hitbox.tv, rumored to be around $10 million.
This is not the first time Azubu has been involved in esports drama. The streaming service received over $40 million in funding between 2012 and 2016 but struggled with financial mismanagement, leading to near bankruptcy in 2016.
E-Frag is now in legal litigation with Azubu to seek full compensation.
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