ESL hand Lynn Vision event ban; penalty waived for Virtus.pro
The investigation into last-minute ESL Pro League withdrawals concluded that the Chinese squad will get an event ban and could miss IEM Krakow, were they to qualify for a VRS invite.
ESL finalized the investigation into Lynn Vision and Virtus.pro's last-minute exits from ESL Pro League due to problems with entry into Sweden, concluding that the Chinese squad could have avoided their issues while the Russian squad's denial of entry into Sweden was beyond their control and therefore falls under the TO's exceptional circumstances clause.
ESL's statement regarding Lynn Vision says: "On the day of the travel to the event, Lynn Vision informed us that several of their players were unable to check-in for their flight, as their visas had expired. This news came as a surprise, given that the team had repeatedly confirmed throughout the invitation and booking process that all necessary visas were in place.
"If unintentional, this oversight remains entirely unacceptable and does not fall under any of our exceptional circumstances (either medical emergency or visa complications)."
Here is an extract from ESL's rulebook:
2.14.1 Withdrawing from the event
Participants are considered to have withdrawn from the event if they leave during the ongoing stage, between the two stages of the event, including its qualifying stage (e.g., qualifier and main event), or if they leave after accepting the invitation. In such cases, the participants will forfeit all prize money accumulated for the event and will be penalised with a ban from the next event of the same tier (e.g. if a team withdraws from a Tier 1 event, they will be banned from the next Tier 1 event they would have been invited to). The team that withdraws will also be fined to cover the cost of their replacement (including, but not limited to, flight expenses for the replacement team and any additional costs incurred). If ESL is unable to find a replacement, the original matches assigned to the team will be forfeited.
Additionally, in exceptional cases, tournament administration will waive penalties in the event of a medical emergency or visa complications. To qualify for an exemption:
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For medical emergencies, the team must provide a letter from a licensed doctor explicitly stating that the participant is unable to travel to the event.
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For visa complications, the team must provide official documentation confirming that the visa was denied for reasons outside the participant’s control (e.g., not due to an incorrectly submitted or incomplete application).
Lynn Vision have therefore been handed an event ban for the next Tier 1 event ESL runs that they would qualify for through VRS invites. Were it to be the next one, that would be IEM Krakow.
Virtus.pro will not be sanctioned due to their denial at the border being considered an exceptional circumstance, although both teams will still be required to cover the costs associated with securing their replacements, which is in line with ESL's standard practice in these situations.
Kaisar 'ICY' Faiznurov
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