EffOrt recently dropped some major
bombshells in a broadcast with former teammate
Iris. The two got very drunk (and the stream was restricted to ages 19+).
Part 1: After
EffOrt beat
Flash to win the Korean Air OSL, he was planning to sign if CJ offered him a contract for 100,000,000 KRW/year. However, CJ was not as interested in making
EffOrt happy after the merger with Hite (yet another fallout of the match-fixing scandal). Eventually, they agreed to a figure of 90,000,000 KRW/year. However, then CJ went ahead and leaked an article to the press that
EffOrt was retiring. It is unclear if this was a negotiation tactic, but
EffOrt's first retirement was at least semi-forced upon him as a cost-cutting measure. This reminds me of what happened to
JangBi when he was given a low-ball contract offer and went on a long losing streak at least in part because he was depressed and angry.
Part 2:
EffOrt says that his second retirement (SC2) was because he was unjustly suspected of match-fixing. He was apparently doing poorly against SC2 Protoss. The coaching staff and the scrubs on the team started suspecting both
EffOrt and
Hydra of match-fixing.
EffOrt says they denied suspecting him but he knew what they were saying behind his back. It was serious enough that our man
XellOs, retired from pro-gaming but still a CJ employee at the time, vigorously came to their defense.
EffOrt says that his mother's health played a role, but the main reason that he retired was because he couldn't stand being suspected of match-fixing like that.
EffOrt said that he was absolutely furious at Coach Park (formerly of SKT) for doing this to him and said that Coach Park shouldn't touch him if he had any sense. Apparently,
XellOs immediately quit his job at CJ when
EffOrt retired and
Hydra left. The day after this broadcast, a sober
EffOrt said that he was embarrassed to have shown himself getting so drunk, but that he doesn't take back anything he said about Coach Park.
EffOrt said that Coach Park is an SOB and that he would stab him to death if he could.
My Analysis: These are the far-reaching consequences of the match-fixing scandal. CJ was never a team that was super interested in winning. CJ had a team because CJ owns Ongamenet and Ongamenet needed to fill Proleague with enough teams. Its finances were strapped because of the forced merger with Hite Sparkyz (which was itself previously sponsored by Ongamenet). It didn't really have an incentive to support stars who did not have mass appeal (code: not good looking). Also, the match-fixing scandal seems to have made every player into a potential suspect and made it possible for teams to harass players into retirement if they wanted to save money.
Zeus had previously told the true story of why
Britney was removed from Hite immediately after the match-fixing scandal. In that story, the team had budget cuts and just needed to get rid of an ugly-looking gamer who wasn't good enough to compensate for his bad looks before merging with CJ.
Zeus said that they internally accused
Britney of match-fixing in order to obtain some sort of justification for moving him to Woongjin. Effort has received a lot of criticism on Afreeca for what he said about Coach Park, who has a great reputation in Korea, but somehow I get the feeling that what Effort claims isn't too far from the truth.
The only real conclusion is this: FXXX the guys who participated in the match-fixing scandals. They ruined many careers besides just their own.
EPT
