Elitserien bans Northern Lights for cheating and match-fixing

Two lifetime bans and three one-year bans have been handed out to the Swedish team for the offenses.

The organizers of Swedish tournament series Elitserien have announced that they have handed out bans to five players following an investigation that "confirmed cheating and match-fixing."

The statement left the individuals unnamed "for reasons of integrity and to protect both whistleblowers and affected individuals," but bans on the Esplay platform, where the series is played, show they are members of the team Northern Lights.

The sanction follows the team's suspension from Wednesday, when Elitserien revealed it had received credible evidence about a suspected case of serious match-fixing outside of the tournament series.

At the time of the suspension, the organizers said a confirmation of the suspicions could include suspension lasting from two years up to a lifetime ban.

In the end, three of the players — Frank "⁠Fraaank⁠" Issal, Oscar "⁠Avoy⁠" Dahlkvist and Alexander "⁠frigolito⁠" Andersson — received a one-year ban for "matchfixing" on the Esplay platform, while Anton "⁠Meinz⁠" Evander, an underaged player, and Axel "⁠Axelen⁠" Enholm were banned for life for "matchfixing" and "matchfixing and cheating," respectively.

Elitserien did not explain the reason behind the varying degrees of sanctions or provide any details about the specific offenses. It said there are further "indications of similar irregularities outside the Elitserien's operations," but stressed that these fall outside of their mandate to investigate further.

When contacted by HLTV, the series' founder, Tommy "⁠Potti⁠" Ingemarsson, provided the following statement:

"While we cannot discuss specific details of the investigation or disclose materials, I can confirm that the disciplinary decisions were made by both physical evidence and player confessions.

"We also received external assistance in gathering and evaluating the evidence, which was instrumental in obtaining those confessions."

One of the players themselves, Fraaank, has admitted to the offenses in a series of posts on X. The 21-year-old most notably said that his involvement came in "Exort and United," an apparent reference to the Exort and United21 League series, in which Northern Lights participated earlier this year.

"We used to win/lose depending on what we had decided before the match," he said in response to a question whether the team used a radar hack.

In a post on X, Esplay CEO Daniel "Pani" Aicardi claimed that some of the Northern Lights players had been using "DMA/radar hacks while match-fixing across multiple online leagues and tournaments."

"Staying under the radar by never winning tournaments, the strategy was to remain mid-table, keep the invites coming, and keep matchfixing," he said. "There's much more to this than just one team. Organizers and leagues need to start digging, now!"