CPH Wolves accuse manager of theft

A former manager of Reason Gaming, Daniels was brought in by CPH Wolves to handle the team's day to day affairs, and he was eventually tasked with being the liaison with Valve regarding the stickers for ESL One Cologne.

According to team captain Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander, Daniels was the only one who could cash out the team's sticker earnings, having been the one who uploaded the images to the Steam Workshop.

mini allegedly took $18,000 of the team's sticker money

Due to the team's roster swaps in the wake of the German event, the players' focus was on rebuilding the squad rather than collecting the proceeds from the sticker sale, but shortly before ESWC, Daniels went completely off the grid.

"It came as a shock to me when Pimp called me 2 hours before take-off to ESWC and told me that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels had disappeared," Rossander told HLTV.org.

"He had erased every one of his Steam friends, closed his Facebook account and whenever anyone tried to call him he would block the number.

"I did everything I could to get a hold on him, and at the airport I called him from my girlfriend's phone, and he picked up.

"When he heard my voice his phone “suddenly” stopped working, and he said he could not hear me and hung up. At this moment I realized that he had stolen our money, and I had no clue what to do."

Each player on the team that attended ESL One Cologne was owed approximately $8,500, which means that Daniels had seemingly run off with almost $50,000.

After CPH Wolves' chiefs contacted Daniels, he then called gla1ve and promised to wire the money that was owed to the players and justified his actions with the fact that he was angry at not being able to attend ESWC with the team.

"On Wednesday, me and everyone else had $4,900 in their accounts, so mini had kept $3,600 from every player, which means he had stolen $18,000 from the team," Rossander continued.

"We tried calling him after this, but no one has had any luck getting in contact with him. We again found him on Facebook with his new alias "John Parsonson", but this account has since ben erased by him.

"We have tried everything, from contacting his family to calling him on his home number, but without any luck. Last thing we heard was from his own mother, she told us that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels wasn’t available at the moment, since he was on a vacation.

"At least we now know what he spend the money on, I guess. We have no idea how to take it from here, but we haven not totally given up yet!."

The news will certainly fuel the debate of how the money that teams make from Valve's major events should be handled. Since no contracts were signed and Daniels was the link between the team and Valve, it seems very unlikely that a case could hold in a court of law. 

Below you can find gla1ve's statement in full:

"When we joined up with Copenhagen Wolves we were in great need of a manager who would take care of all the practical stuff during our travels and online tournaments. Johnathan "Mini" Daniels wanted to be a part of our organization, and having heard only good things about him combined with Finn “karrigan” Andersen knowing him as a solid and trustworthy person, from Reason Gaming, one of his former teams, we decided to take Johnathan "Mini" Daniels in as our manager right before ESL Cologne.

"This turned out to be a big mistake. Johnathan "Mini" Daniels seemed to be a nice person in real life, and I think I can easily say that we all got fooled by his two-faced personality, since everyone got along with him. When I look back now, it is pretty obvious to me that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels planned to steal our money from the start.

"His first move was to make sure that he was the one who took care of all the communication with VALVE when it had anything to do with the stickers. Being a former Reason manager Johnathan "Mini" Daniels knew from being with Reason in Katowice that only the person who uploaded images of the logo for the stickers, could cash out the sticker money.

"After ESL One Cologne, Copenhagen Wolves' team fell apart, and we remade it with a new lineup. While Pimp and I had our heads full with sorting everything out with the new lineup, Johnathan "Mini" Daniels wrote me that the money would be on his account soon. At this time no one on the team had much time to communicate with Johnathan "Mini" Daniels, since we had practice and had to prepare for ESWC so it came as a shock tp me when Pimp called me two hours before take-off to ESWC and told me that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels had disappeared. He had erased every one of Steam friends, closed his Facebook account and whenever anyone tried to call him he would block the numbers.

"Knowing that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels had 50.000$ of my team's money, I did everything I could to get a hold on him, and at the airport I called him from my girlfriend's phone, and he picked up. When he heard my voice his phone “suddenly” stopped working, and he said “hello hello can’t hear you” and hung up. At this moment I realized that he had stolen our money, and I had no clue what to do.

"I called Copenhagen Wolves' owner, who contacted some guys in England, where Johnathan "Mini" Daniels lives. They called him and talked to him for around an hour, and then Johnathan "Mini" Daniels realized what he had done.

"All of a sudden his phone worked perfectly and he called me when we landed in France. He told me that he was really sorry about wanting to take the money and that he was just angry that he didn’t get the chance to go to ESWC with the team which he had been looking forward to. Knowing that this guy had 50.000$ of mine I didn’t want to seem mad, but I was, I was very angry. But I told him that I was glad that he changed his mind and made the right decision.

"At this point it was just important to me to get the 50.000$ transferred to the players' accounts. At this point mini owed all of us around 8500$ each and he promised to wire it all at the beginning of the following week. On Wednesday, me and everyone else had $4,900 in their accounts, which means min had kept $3,600 from every player, which means he stole $18,000 from the team.

"I and a lot of other people have tried to call Johnathan "Mini" Daniels after this, but no one has had any luck getting in contact with him. We found his Facebook with his new alias “John Parsonson”, but this one  has since been erased again.

"We have tried everything, from contacting his family to calling him on his home number, but without any luck. Last thing we heard was from his own mother, who told us that Johnathan "Mini" Daniels wasn’t available at the time since he was on a vacation.

"At least we now know what he spent the money on, I guess. We have no idea how to take it from here, but we haven’t totally given up yet!"