Organization: Copenhagen Wolves
Date of Ruling: 10/29/2014
Subject: Fine; Violation of LCS ruleset

Facts:

On September 14, 2014, it was brought to our attention that two members of the Copenhagen Wolves, Karim “Airwaks” Benghalia and Paweł “Woolite” Pruski, allegedly played in LCS matches before they had signed valid contracts.

We have concluded our investigation of these claims and have discovered the following:

On May 13, LCS officials informed the Copenhagen Wolves’ manager that their roster changes were approved on the condition that an issue with Airwaks’ and Woolite’s contracts be resolved prior to their playing in the LCS. The issue with the contracts was around their contract termination dates, which if not resolved would make the contracts invalid. LCS officials followed up with the Copenhagen Wolves CEO to finalize the contracts on May 15.

Although these changes were eventually made, we recently discovered that Airwaks’ and Woolite’s contracts were not signed until early June. The EU LCS Summer Split began on May 20 so these players had already participated for multiple weeks in the EU LCS without valid contracts.

The League currently does not mandate that owners provide it with copies of their player contracts. In this case the player contracts were provided to the League upon request to the organization’s management once the investigation had begun.

Relevant Rules:

From the 2014 LCS ruleset:

3.2 Roster Requirements

“All Starters must have a written contract with the team they are playing for.“

Ruling:

Copenhagen Wolves has violated rule 3.2 of the LCS ruleset.

It is unacceptable for LCS organizations to field players without contracts during their LCS matches.

Competition Penalties:

Copenhagen Wolves is:

• Fined $1,000