This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.
Millenium's League of Legends Coach Olivier 'Olly' Debeuf, formerly of team Alternate, has been linked to several leaked player transfers of professional League of Legends teams. This includes a Reddit post created by Debeuf himself in late November on Mitch 'Krepo' Voorspoels, Stephen 'Snoopeh' Ellis, and Peter 'yellowpete' Wüppen joining the current Evil Geniuses North American roster, and several instances of disclosing information (since removed) regarding the Lemondogs-NiP transfer fiasco, and subsequent new Lemondogs roster.
In a statement provided to onGamers by Debeuf last week, prior to Riot Games' rule changes regarding team ownership, Debeuf says that he is doing this to protect the players from the ownership of the teams.
"Contrary to semi-popular belief, it's not attention whoring and I hope that in time it will reap its benefits, even though that is probably hard for people to understand right now," Debeuf said. "The way Lemondogs treat their players is fairly horrendous. They exploit the fact that these players (mostly kids) have no clue about anything related to legal matters and will blindly sign anything that's given to them. I encountered the same thing with Alternate a few months ago when I read the agreement that Johannes had proposed to the team (we're still waiting for the money from July by the way, from Alternate)."
Debeuf added, "When I 'exposed' the idea behind NiP buying the LCS slot of LD, I had the intention of starting a bit of an ethical debate on the more popular community hubs (mostly Reddit) without directly involving myself in it, because in the end if I pushed it too far the players themselves would be harmed, which is the contrary of my intentions. I will, in the future attempt to debate contractual standards from organizations to their players, provide free legal advise (this is when I get my bar license and if I am authorized by law to give legal advice to these people) to the players, who are usually fairly clueless."
"The end goal is that all the players in the 2015 season of the LCS would have contracts that do not solely benefit the organization, but would benefit the players equally."
The information Debeuf has leaked in recent months has all been related to other team organizations, ones that are in direct competition with Millenium in LCS. Debeuf alleges no matter his position within a competing organization, he is providing this information for the betterment of the players in the industry.
"Regardless of my position within a team, I feel that the most important thing in eSports is to guarantee the integrity of the organizations towards the players. If I step on a few toes in the process, so be it," he said. "I'm not a manager, I'm a coach. The reason I do what I do is because I personally strive towards an actual future for eSports in which players aren't the victims of corporate greed. We've seen it multiple times in the past (particularly in SC2) that organizations treat their players horribly and they wind up worse off than they were before they joined the organization. Esports, just like any other sport at its core are the players, not the organizations and not the brands. Of course sponsoring needs to happen and marketing is essential to assure growth, but looking at organizations like SK & Fnatic, it's perfectly possible to do that without your players having to suffer for it."
Beyond the troubles of Lemondogs that Debeuf attempted to expose, there is one other organization that is a thorn in his side.
"As far as Evil Geniuses goes, they like to pretend to the public that they're the bannermen of ethics and justice", he said. "That does not stop them from resorting to personal attacks and defamation when it comes to preventing individuals joining forces with their competitors. However, when they then themselves seek to acquire an individual with an even more turbulent past dating no less than mere months before the acquisition, the need to preach ethics suddenly is nowhere to be found, the worst thing is that they keep repeating this over and over."
"I must also add to that, that this is not the case for all the players who are signed to EG and its (legally not) sister organization, the people in question are a vocal minority in their respective teams and organizations."
Millenium is currently 1-2 in the first week of Season 4 of the LCS, and will play Fnatic later today.
Image Credit: lolesports