The Turkish branch of Riot Games has decided to ban a team from their nation, Galatasaray Esports, from participating in the TCL during the spring split. It is currently unknown how long this ban will be in effect, or if the issues surrounding the ban will be rectified and result in an immediate lifting of the ban.
Galatasaray Esports’ ban comes as a result of the management department failing to pay the professional team their wages. As a result of their inability to pay their players, Riot will no longer allow them to compete on a professional level.
The tweet above is the official statement from the Turkish branch of LoLesports, @LoLespor. Roughly translated to English, it reads the following:
“Galatasaray Espor’s right to participate in the league has been suspended in the 2020 Winter Season. The league will be played with 9 teams in the 2020 Winter Season. Details article.” (The article linked here is in Turkish).
Within the further details of the article, the authorities responsible for the ban explain their reasoning, as well as giving specifics on the amount of time they’ve given the team to fix their issues. In doing so, they answer the above question of how to lift the ban:
“Galatasaray Espor’s right to participate in the Vodafone FreeZone Championship League in the Summer of 2020 will be re-evaluated according to the steps to be taken in line with our expectations. We will share the details with you again on this medium.”
So we know now that the team’s legitimacy will be looked at again after the end of the Spring season, looking towards Summer instead. Assuming they’ve managed to secure the ability to properly pay their staff, they’ll then be reinstated in the league.
Fans of “European” Football may be familiar with the Turkish team, Galatasaray, that fathers the esports branch. Strangely, this team is one of the largest in Turkey, and should be having no issues with funding, but that doesn’t seem to have helped prevent the issue.
Interestingly, the team doesn’t even have a full roster at the moment, so there’s not much of a chance that they would have managed to compete regardless. Currently, the active roster includes Onurcan “Ragner” Aslan in the top lane, Mert “MGX” Güvercin in mid, and Mustafa Kemal “Dumbledoge” Gökseloğlu in support. In fact, MGX’s contract expired over a month ago in November, meaning that there are technically only two players on the team, with no coach.
