Rogue Warriors has been hit with a 3 million RMB ($422.5K USD) fine for trying to cover up match fixing in the competitive scene. The League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Discipline Committee announced this decision after a lengthy investigation into the allegations against former jungler Wang “WeiYan” Xiang.
Rogue Warriors fined for match fixing
“Even after a year of repeated reminders and warnings, some still chose to ignore the rules which led to severe consequences. We hereby once again remind our players to remind themselves not to violate club and league rules,” wrote Rogue Warriors on Weibo. “We will also further conduct deep internal probes and we are vowing to root out anyone that has directly or indirectly participated in violations.”
The Chinese player joined the developmental academy team Rogue Warriors Shark in February 2019. He later transitioned to the main roster in May of 2019 with top laner Bae “Holder” Jae-cheol. WeiYan stayed there until March 24, when the internal investigation revealed he had violated regulations.
Covering up for WeiYan
These claims came to light after initial reports surfaced that the player had discussed match fixing games between opponents Dominus Esports and Victory Five. While the Chinese player never followed through with the match fixing, he was still handed a 2-year suspension from both the competitive scene and his ability to create content around the game.
The substantial fine was due to the fact that the organization attempted to cover up the situation for over a year. Rogue Warriors only came forward to the LPL after an anonymous Weibo account posted screenshots publicly showing the match fixing conversation.
If the team had reported it upfront, only the player would have received a punishment since the match fixing did not actually occur. The situation was also singular, rather than multiple players on the team participating as in previous cases.
