Last week, UK esports organisation Reason Gaming were provisionally suspended from the ESL CSGO Premiership over alleged match fixing.
ESL suspended the team pending a full investigation, believing that Reason threw a match against Radix, so they would face them in the Premiership finals at EGX instead of apparently easier opposition.
Well, the investigation has been carried out while Reason continued to protest their innocence, and they’ve now been cleared.
The Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC), whose Code of Conduct and Anti-Corruption Code is followed by ESL, have lifted the provisional suspension.
“We are satisfied that underperformance by the Reason Gaming team in their match against Radix was not deliberate as originally alleged. Consequently, we have lifted the suspension at the earliest opportunity.”
Ian Smith, ESIC
Esports Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith explained: “ESIC would not usually comment on investigations, but, in this case, unfortunately, details were put into the public domain and, in the interests of natural justice and protecting the reputations of those involved, it is only right that we clarify what has happened.
“Preliminary evidence justified provisional suspension given the stage of the Premiership that had been reached and the time pressures involved. These pressures also prompted us to expedite the further investigation of the allegations, which we did as quickly as possible.
“The result of those further investigations is that we are satisfied that underperformance by the Reason Gaming team in their match against Radix was not deliberate as originally alleged. Consequently, we have lifted the suspension at the earliest opportunity.”
ESIC said it will make no further comment on the issue.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
