Evil Geniuses has confirmed it will be sending multiple Counter-Strike rosters to attend Fragadelphia 17 in the United States. In a tweet on Sep. 5, EG’s team manager shared that the former Party Astronauts and Carpe Diem teams will attend the $100,000 event, with both representing the NA org.
The post caused a stir on Twitter, with many CS:GO fans pointing out the potential conflict of interest this Evil Geniuses situation would potentially create.
Daniel ‘sprayxdCS’ Kogan (coach for ATK) joined the chorus soon after, highlighting that the org stands to win $60,000 if both teams were to succeed throughout the tournament, and if Carpe Diem and Party Astronauts were to face each other, it would be a conflict of interest.
Muenster, the head coach for Evil Geniuses, replied to the tweet, defending the tournament organizers’ decision to allow them to have two teams participate.
EG’s head coach assured CSGO fans there was “absolutely zero chance of any foul play” between the teams.
He also added there was “extensive” discussion between the teams and officials.
Kogan fired back at muenster, arguing the conflict of interest was still present and pointing out it “still doesn’t make that okay from (the tournament officials) to allow that.”
The multi-team tourney announcement sparked outrage from other individuals in the CS:GO scene too, with Michael ‘Swisher’ Schmid, a professional Counter-Strike player for ATK, putting his foot down, stating he “completely disagreed with this move.”
While muenster’s words might be true, historically speaking, this type of incident is far from unheard of in the Counter-Strike scene.
There have been discussions regarding the competitive integrity of allowing academy teams to participate in tournaments involving non-academy teams of the same organization for the past couple of years.
Previously, ESL solved the issue by banning academy Counter-Strike teams from participating in tournaments alongside their non-academy counterparts.
In 2018, the former Brazilian SK squad sparked controversy when they participated in a tournament with another Brazilian team, NTC. Both teams were undergoing a player switch, which caused a stir in the community. The teams were allowed to participate, however, the “academy team rule” was used in their decision-making process.
The two North American Evil Geniuses squads are significantly more experienced as far as the caliber of teams that will be present at the event.
As of publication, Fragadelphia officials haven’t changed their stance on the matter.
