ESIC: Insufficient evidence to determine player involvement in coaching bug scandal

2-9-2020 14:48

The organisation urged all industry parties to refrain from speculation and called on people to come forward with information.

The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) has issued a statement regarding the coach spectating bug scandal that came to light on Monday. The esports watchdog group confirmed the bans that were announced by ESL and revealed that there is "insufficient evidence available to determine with any certainty" that players were aware of any wrongdoing or complicit in the coaches' behaviour.

"ESIC’s role in protecting the industry from cheating and match-fixing involves the assessment of evidence in order to determine breaches of our Code," the organisation said. "Accordingly, ESIC will not speculate on the complicity of players and we urge all other parties in the industry to do the same."

Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen, Ricardo "⁠dead⁠" Sinigaglia and Aleksandr "⁠zoneR⁠" Bogatiryev have been banned for a minimum of six months from all ESIC member events, which includes the tournaments operated by ESL, DreamHack, BLAST and Eden Esports. ESIC called on all non-member tournament organisers to honour these bans "for the purpose of protecting the CS:GO esports scene internationally."

With esports tournaments being held online due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, ESIC has imposed the following restrictions to the three banned coaches:

Must not actively or passively communicate with the team starting 15 minutes prior to the official match start up until the end of the match.

Must not be physically present around the team starting 15 minutes prior to the official match start up until the end of the match.

Must not be on the game server during official matches.

Must not be on the official match channel on the Discord server.

Must not be part of the official map veto process nor be in communication with the team during this process.

zoneR, who was handed the longest ban of the three coaches (two years), was on Tuesday removed by Hard Legion. dead (six months) and HUNDEN (12 months) are currently suspended by MIBR and HEROIC, respectively.

ESIC said that it will keep this investigation open for at least two more months and encouraged people with information about this case to contact the organisation at [email protected] with the subject line "ESICS310820". All communications about the case will be kept confidential.

Correction: The title of the story has been updated to better reflect ESIC's statement.

Coverup lmao

2020-09-02 14:49

14 replies

Coverup lol

2020-09-02 14:50

1 reply

wonder how much teams payed $$$$

2020-09-02 15:19

-rep for ESIC :)

2020-09-02 14:54

+1 twitter.com/Aniket_Raj1/status/130085628.. watch the b rotation. The players were in on it.

2020-09-02 15:07

10 replies

Omg look at the B rotation

2020-09-02 15:12

Lmfaoo thats as blatant as it gets

2020-09-02 15:17

Have you considering that the coach may call without telling how tf did he knows? Its unlikely but possible

2020-09-02 15:22

7 replies

The coach shouldn't be calling during the round anyway

2020-09-02 16:09

2 replies

I think this rules wont applied to online CS.

2020-09-02 16:12

2020-09-02 16:27

2020-09-02 18:13

Are you watching forester on radar . "Push tunnel. Wait. Run(Not walk) T-spawn." How do you make a call like that and forester listen exactly without missing a beat ?

2020-09-02 18:49

You're an idiot. Try search more about the bug than talk as a fcn mid-brain person at least.

2020-09-02 20:23

I'm sorry but you're the idiot here. With such accurate calls during many rounds the players should at least suspect something illegit was going on.

2020-09-03 11:53

Word

STEP OUT OF YOURE MESSY JOGGING-PANTS GABEN WE NEED THE BAN HAMMER

agre

2020-09-02 15:04

Should still suspend the whole team

11 replies

Only if there is evidence. If you ban people based on no evidence, then what's the point of having any investigation ever.

2020-09-02 14:51

2020-09-02 14:52

but when you see the players movimentation, it becomes clear they knew about it how could hard legion not if he did for 6 maps? and what about mibr against triumph? everybody knows they did, but dont have the communication itself, unfortunately

2020-09-02 15:03

I agree, but innocent until PROVEN guilty.

2020-09-02 15:05

If they have no evidence, why ban the coach btw? The information they gave only work for the players, not for themselves.

2020-09-02 15:18

If the coach says "I think they might stack a" etc, then you can't prove the players knew the coach was using an exploit, but they still get the info. I mean, I agree that it's probable/near obvious the players knew, but you can really only prove that the coach was getting extra info with the glitch. If some proof comes up that the players knew the coach was using the bug, then fuck them, get banned. But it must be proved first. So many people here want the players banned without definitive proof of their involvement.

A agree with you bro. I dont think a ban to the players is the right think to do. But say "NO EVIDENCE OF PLAYER INVOLVEMENT" and ban the coachs with "no evidence" that they use the bug for for their benefit is pretty hypocritical in my opinion.

2020-09-02 15:32

What more do they need ? Their coacches literrally gave them informations they shouldn't have....

2020-09-02 16:30

2020-09-02 14:59

flair check out

2020-09-02 15:16

Hmm

What?

Expected. Just like in 2014, Skadoodle didn't get banned for not accepting skins

2020-09-02 14:56

how they wanna enforce and control those restrictions? :D

how they can follow this?

Some loser over at tw*tter watches 100 demos per day. :DDDDDD

2020-09-02 14:55

if you mean michau9_ he's not a loser and actual CS:GO referee which contributed a lot into the pro scene with this investigation

2020-09-02 16:21

Nt. Coaches are not going behind their teams backs.

This is so lame!! So obvious the players knew

9 replies

hard legion players knew, even their CEO of team knew, he was in their teamspeak one of those game and said this wont end up well but yeah, gj esic :)))

8 replies

Lol good job by the CEO to provide evidence that he and the players knew about chating. Good job by ESL ignoring this. XDDDD Unless he meant by "this wont end up well" the cake he was baking at that time with bad quality ingredients..

5 replies

he is just a youtuber and created his small own org so expected kinda, he is noob yesterday i think he was almost crying about what if his sponsors will find out about this , or if they will miss the major cuz of this , hahahaha this organization could be done

3 replies

Has anyone published how to reproduce this bug? I wonder if it's 50 steps or if it can be done "by accident" like some cheats in gta VC can be typed in when playing normally iirc. (without having the intention)

2020-09-02 15:09

there are 2 of them they are similar 1st one is fixed i think 2nd one happens very often like every 2-3 rounds twitter.com/s1mpleO/status/1300786329593..

2020-09-02 15:11

but answering your question i think he found out how to reproduce it, maybe select last player etc, because he used it on ALL 3 maps in gambit game, i think he clearly knew how to do it

2020-09-02 15:13

haha +1

2020-09-02 15:51

proof?

2020-09-02 15:15

2020-09-02 15:33

Said it

Should get perma bans

yeah sure, whatever

Insufficient evidence lol at least hard legions players knew about it. It was clear after seeing those videos. A massive amount of bans will happen in the next few months...

Yeah HL knew it exactly, both their coaches did it The Hard legion org is super shady

6 replies

What do you mean "both coaches"?

2020-09-02 14:58

ESIC said that the investigation will go on for the next months, I hope they ban them all. Even though i like the heroic guys I believe they also knew about it. No way Hunden used it for 10 rounds and no one of the team mates didn't noticed it

4 replies

Yeah I agree. I think the hard legion case is the only one in which they all should get banned simply because they used it so extensively. Hunden at least snitched himself and put out a very honest statement

2020-09-02 15:39

What means ‘snitched himself’? There is no really value in his words in his statement, he just got caught. That’s what you say to minimize damage to yourself and your team. Liked him a lot, very disappointing... makes me wonder if I’d have enough integrity to not use the bug in similar circumstances.

2020-09-02 21:12

yeah i'm disappointed regardless but it seems hunden used the bug, felt guilty, and then reported the bug to the referee, well knowing what consequences he will face

2020-09-02 21:19

Is that what really happened?? Didn't know that... he snitched himself indeed. Noble of him. Thanks for the information

2020-09-02 21:42

Maybe chaos used/using this bug Kappa

just to make it short, they didn't even want to investigate just like fixed matches. Disgusting community!

esic must be blind if they don't see fixing in bet company tournaments

2020-09-02 14:53

mostly cs games now based on fixed matches except tier1 cs

2020-09-02 15:54

ok how exactly do you think this could be investigated?

No proof, no ban. Makes sense.

haha sure

lmao they dont know that hunden can communicate with the team using telepathy

Lol

2020-09-02 18:20

Highly likely players knew about the bug.

Quote 1: "insufficient evidence available to determine with any certainty" that players were aware of any wrongdoing or complicit in the coaches' behaviour. Quote 2: "ESIC will not speculate on the complicity of players and we urge all other parties in the industry to do the same." Am I being an idiot or do these two statements contradict themselves?

not really, I think they mean that they will not speculate further since they found no evidence of their initial suspicion

Fair; that makes sense.

2020-09-02 15:02

Yes, you are idiot. They do not contradict themselves at all

At least i can form a cohesive sentence ;)

2020-09-02 15:01

0/8 bad try

2020-09-02 15:06

Imho that's just innocent until proven guilty, how law works in the 1st world. They cannot prove guilty - therefore not guilty and any claims of guilt would be speculation. Their resolution to this is still shady af.

The boycott continues

someone need to snitch

2020-09-02 14:57

call GMX

2020-09-02 15:00

Did they communicate with coach mid round this event or not?

Pretty sure it was ruled before the event (rtr) that coaches would be able to talk mid round and has been kept the same since then.

2020-09-02 15:50

Ok then this bug can really destroy game.

2020-09-02 20:15

ahahah ok...sure players are not involved when coaches hang out in spec bug and give infos about buys and plays xDD but I can understand the decision. They fear that they have to ban like 30 40 % of teams when they finished reviewing every game, so they make clear now that there are no effects for the teams!

Bullshit

i arent think that

Skadoodle deja Vu

bullshit as always

Bullshit coverup. Hard Legion 100% had info. U think coach would be using it for so many matches without telling any info? LOL OKAY

+1 you can even see in the clip that he gave info to the players.v twitter.com/Aniket_Raj1/status/130085628.. just look at the minimap and the b guy lul

it's 2 different things: 1) giving players info from bug 2) telling players those infos come from a bug

as pro player you should question such weird information.

it wouldn't be hard for a coach to conceal stuff he knows when communicating with team. he could say, for instance, he has studied opponent on that exact situation and there are high chances they are at spot X, not spot Y

2020-09-02 18:22

+1 A lot of people find this difficult to understand.

2020-09-03 00:39

lmfaooo sure I might believe it in the mibr case because it was 1 round but the hard legion thing was obvious af. twitter.com/Aniket_Raj1/status/130085628.. watch the b rotation LOL

its obvious they dont want any more drama, i just hope Cologne was legit at this point, hope they didnt cover up this shit there

"no evidence that players were involved" hahahahahahahahaahhaa

dead did more than 1 round. And it wasn't an accident. Both deserve same ban time + Hunden.

no, he did 1 round vs triumph (didnt call pause). 1 round vs Yeah and 1 round vs Envy (called pause)

2020-09-02 15:24

twitter.com/kanarito/status/130076862800.. this one is even more blatant lmao

2020-09-02 15:25

2020-09-02 18:09

The players knew and were involved , you cant fool anyone.

now i know why they also dont see any matchfixing in tier3-4 scene... they are just blind

the most important here is not the punishment, but the further development of better security measures and software to avoid these practices

2020-09-02 15:08

suuure they had noo idea ;)

No evidence doesn't mean innocent. Everyone is free to do his assumption if the players knew or not. And the past showed by the way that no org no TO etc do everything to prevent and protect the integrity of the game. It starts with useless round robins matches where nobody needs to win and it ends by covering up shit that would maybe to much to deal with if it goes public. Valve did the most by giving lifetime bans to match-fixer and vac bans and the "conflict of interest" rule.

Told you MIBR is innocent

Mother fucker MiBR’s setups were all in the same fucking room there is no way the players didn’t know Idk about Hard Legion irrelevant anyway Heroic might be innocent but I still don’t trust them

SURE

ok ok maybe stop this drama already

Of course they cant prove that the players were involved but its pretty clear that if a coach used the bug in multiple games the players must have known. Nobody can just guess where they're going at the start of the round all of the time and nobody can guess what they're buying. Not saying these semi-top tier team players knew about it, but the lower tier ones must have.

They cant control this lmaooo😂😂so retarded rules. U dont have a 360view camera and a mic/bug up their asses like they followed the mafia in the early ‘90ies. So stupid rly lmao

There is no way players weren't knowing what was happening. And because online, coaches are able to perma talk to the players during rounds... 360 bomb site vision, telling the players where ennenis are in real time. They are just trying to coverup they messed up completely and bug weren't fixed in time. Multiple teams saw this bug during the beginning of ESL Cologne. So it wasn't fixed before the event.

2020-09-02 15:20

For the guy who did it just one round, it's possible that he didn't tell the players, but the 2 others have been using it for 10 rounds straight or more, how on earth is it possible to do that without telling the players? Even if they somehow didn't, which is very unlikely, how is it possible for the players not to notice anything, for 10 rounds straight? I understand that they can't prove they knew and thus can't ban them, but let's not act like they didn't know, of course they did.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. You are kidding right? Its obvious in one clip that the coach is telling the players something on Dust 2 LOL

2020-09-02 15:23

The players from Hard Legion should be banned, is this not enough proof? twitter.com/Aniket_Raj1/status/130085628.. Is not like you're pushing this fast with just a little info from the coach like "I think they will not lurk on b on this round" And look at the timing when he's pushing t spawn only after Boombl4 is not watching anymore on tunnels from t spawn.

Ignoring blatant proof xD there is nothing to speculate about... This will promote cheating during online cs even more. As long as there is no proof, players will abuse everything they can....

2020-09-02 15:27

Lol its obvious the players knew, scumbags every one of them

Of course they say that ...imagine the damage cs go will take if they say players knew about the bug...i feel sorry for all the people that lost money on bets on the matches. god knows how many more matches had this going on....

thats why LAN is 1000 times better there is no coach bug, you cant cheat obviously, voices are recorded. no delay ect.ect.ect...

Joke

Scapegoating your coaches LUL

0/8

Sure, sure buddy. :)

2020-09-02 15:56

Hard Legion players should be punished, wtf.

2020-09-02 16:01

this is insane. i think i’ll just skip betting online cs for a month or so

2020-09-02 16:03

-rep for ESIC

2020-09-02 16:14

If it werent for mibr, they would throw all these noname players under the bus too. Just saying...

2020-09-02 16:17

+1 100% true my man

2020-09-03 12:07

LMAO sure sure sure ok yeah sure sure ok yeah sure :()

2020-09-02 16:26

LOLOLOLOL and people say theres no cheaters on csgo. mibr clip can be explainable but the others lol

2020-09-02 16:33

Mibr clips arent explainable as well dude, its obvious all the players knew and still didnt do shit

2020-09-02 20:16

check demo, kng and taco can hear spongey going to bathrooms clearly.

2020-09-02 20:18

Insufficient evidence... Duh. If they knew, they'd be very stupid to reveal anything. It's pretty safe to assume that at very least some of the players knew something. But to get solid evidence you'd need access to comms etc. Imma myself gonna conclude that the teams with banned coaches are cheaters.

2020-09-02 17:11

if the players react to information they can only have bcs of the coach cam they should get the same punishment period. some of the rotations, nades etc. are clearly happening in accordance to the info the coaches got from the bug. Complete bullshit.

2020-09-02 17:17

I can't wait for the $2M online major. It will be a shitfest of cheats and bug abusers. It's going to be funny to see heroic or some hardlegion or T3 team winning it with perfect rotations.

2020-09-02 18:12

It will be lan dude so there wont be no coaches in ts i think ,even if there are , there would be people watching over the players and coaches

2020-09-02 20:17

yea sure

2020-09-02 19:11

gj cheaters "way of life" lolwut?)))) u useless obey with it.

2020-09-02 20:24

This is absolute joke. If your coach gives you the info they gave, you are going to ask him questions after game and most likely scenario you know already what he is doing.

2020-09-02 20:54

All of the Teams involved should be Perma Banned. END OF DISCUSSION.

2020-09-02 23:18

lol

2020-09-03 11:21

Fair. I'll apply that to Hard Legion and Heroic, but given the propensity for MiBR fans to condemn players for cheating based on the weakest of evidence and the lack of discouragement for this from the players, I'm interested to see how MiBR move forward from this. Their position is indefensible imo.

2020-09-03 01:13

The players most likely knew, they received the call after all. Even me when playing mm and i receive a call which turns to be correct i suspect the teammate was wall hacking

2020-09-03 06:08