kaffs called on the South American Dota 2 community to fight against “322”
Former LGD Gaming coach Igor “kaffs” Furtado addressed the South American community following the announcement of the ESIC investigation’s findings regarding Juan David “Vintage” Angulo Nicho and Oswaldo Gonzalo “DarkMago” Herrera Martínez.
kaffs called on the community to pay attention to the issue of match-fixing:
Not long ago, our region had one of the world’s greatest generations of new talent. We’ve also had at least two strong organizations over many seasons that invested and fielded teams competing at the international level. Earlier this year, when my team qualified for TI by defeating PlayTime in the finals, I publicly stated that we deserved two slots and expressed my disappointment at how unfair it was not to have them. I couldn’t have been more wrong: we don’t deserve two slots, and there may even be a world in which we won’t have even one going forward. The situation is so serious that in the playoffs of any South American qualifier, more than half the teams have at least one ineligible player—and that’s putting it mildly. <...>
If you don’t want to listen to me, listen to what Matthew has to say. He’s one of you, a very honest guy who also understands the full gravity of the situation. It’s so serious that a personal friend of mine involved in organizing tournaments told me to just leave the region and train somewhere else. There’s a world in which organizers will simply stop holding qualifiers for South America. <...>
If possible, we should also stop idolizing and honoring people who have contributed to the destruction of our region in the past. Match-fixing should be treated as the gravest crime in esports, and people should be punished for it, not glorified. <...>
The coach asked that relevant violations be reported to initiate new investigations, including anonymously. He also acknowledged the contributions of Wits and Astini in the fight against “322” and mentioned Elmisho and Scofield, who have been affected by the troubles associated with this story. In addition, kaffs temporarily refrained from commenting on the situation with TaiLung and urged people to trust the authorities conducting the investigations and audits.
Among the major tournament operators, BLAST does not hold qualifiers in the Americas. The organizers limit themselves to inviting a representative from the region if none is included on the list when compiling the invite list.
