Over the last few months, the League of Legends professional team Team Solomid have been kept in the limelight after a few interesting events. This past Spring Split wasn’t quite successful, with the team ending at a 50% win rate on nine wins and nine losses.
One of the lights that shined through, however, was the reacquisition of Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng from Team Liquid. After a horrible season with Team Liquid, Doublelift completed a transfer back to his former team at the end of the Spring Split.
While most were happy to see this, there was a bit of a controversy in the fact that Doublelift is also dating the president of TSM, Leena Xu. This was quite a point of controversy already while he was at Team Liquid, as being romantically involved with the head of a competing organization is objectively a conflict of interest.
Either way, it seems like this combination of the two has finally caused a tangible problem, albeit in an unsuspected way. During Doublelift’s stream, Xu could be overheard talking business on the phone near him, discussing the prospects of TSM and some other possibilities.
The specific quote came from a single moment of silence from Doublelift in which Xu could be overheard in the background. Incredibly quietly, Xu was heard saying “It’s not up to me, for example – no one wants to pick up Dardoch, that’s not my fault.”
This has led to a massive amount of fallout as the League community all but erupted, and rightfully so. Xu making such a thing public has drastic impacts on Dardoch’s prospects, as well as proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite their insistence otherwise, Doublelift has undoubtedly been privy to information he as a player shouldn’t have about others as a result of his partnership with Xu.
What might have been worse was the follow up comments that Xu left on the Reddit threads discussing the matter. In her defense, she asserts that this is far from the first time she’s had such conversations while Doublelift streams and that a recent change in his equipment made the sound audible when it usually wouldn’t have. Considering the crux of the issue is that these conversations shouldn’t be had near a public streamer or a professional player, it’s a bit of a weak excuse.
Heading to Twitter, she added to this, providing an apology to Dardoch and the TSM community. There, Xu states that it was never her intention to drag a player publically, and owns up to the mistake entirely.
That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t change the fallout of the matter. It’s now undeniable that the conflict of interest is a caustic thing, and that Doublelift and Xu make little to no attempt to hide information the others shouldn’t know about the League of Legends and LCS communities.
As the days move on, the apology isn’t what fans want. Many members of the community – including notable figures in the professional scene – are calling for something to be done about the blatant conflict of interest.
