ESL handed Astralis a $100,000 fine on June 29 for requesting and receiving services from an employee that was contracted to another organization between April and July 2021.
The official statement shared by ESL never mentions who that person was, but based on the description, it was most likely pro-turned-coach Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen. The 31-year-old was the head coach of Heroic when he got banned in August 2021 for attempting to leak a strategy folder from Heroic to another team that was going to attend IEM Cologne.
Related: Who is HUNDEN and why was he banned from CS:GO?
An independent investigation was commissioned in January 2023 and the investigation concluded Astralis created, maintained, and didn’t report an existing conflict of interest to ESL. Astralis is one of the 15 esports organizations partnered with ESL, which grants them a permanent slot in the ESL Pro League and revenue share.
What Astralis has done is a “breach of the regulations” established in the Louvre Agreement, which is the contract organizations sign with ESL once they become partners.
“Thankfully the need to investigate a member is rare, but we will always act on critical information and investigate their relevance,” ESL Pro League’s commissioner Alex Inglot said in a statement. “We ensured that all steps of the process set out in our Agreement were followed, using industry-leading independent experts along the way.”
This marks the first time that Astralis has ever been punished since approaching HUNDEN while he was the head coach of Heroic in 2021. The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) originally banned HUNDEN for two years in August 2021 for collaborating with Astralis while he was a part of Heroic. Richard Lewis reported earlier this year that HUNDEN had signed a deal with Astralis during his time with Heroic.
ESIC took a surprising U-turn in December 2022 and unbanned HUNDEN without offering too much explanation for the community other than that he would undergo training. In January 2023, HUNDEN was appointed head analyst at Astralis and was working for the Danish organization until June 21, when his contract got terminated upon a roster overhaul.
HUNDEN has a rich history in CS:GO esports in terms of controversies, having been banned twice thus far since transitioning to head coach. He was suspended in 2020 for his involvement in the coaching spectator bug scandal, which allowed coaches to set their cameras anywhere on the map and pass the information to their teams.
