EPT
Following a claim from Team SCV Life that Fnatic Life's Han "Alive" Lee Seok had been signed by Fnatic behind TSL management's back, a back and forth between the two sides has ensued. Though fnatic deny they acted inappropriately regarding the under-contract Alive, TSL continues to insist there was foul play.
In the first salvo, Coach Lee claimed through a Gamechosun.com article that Alive had left TSL to join Fnatic, with Fnatic going behind TSL management’s back and bypassing the appropriate channels. It would have been a similar situation to Evil Geniuses' acquisition of then TSL player Lee "Puma" Ho Jun after the NASL Season 1 Grand Finals, where Coach Lee expressed his displeasure at EG's supposedly backhanded approach.
In the article, coach Lee was quoted as saying "It seems he talked about transferring teams with Fnatic's translator. Fnatic is denying responsibility by saying it's something the translator did on his own, but that's nonsense. I'm angry that they didn't approach me officially, and went to the player directly." Coach Lee said he was considering taking legal measures, such as suing Alive for breach of contract.
However, Fnatic replied through an official statement that Alive had not in fact joined their team, and that they would not have approached him as they knew he was under contract. Fnatic mentioned that while Alive had in fact left the TSL house, it was for reasons unrelated to Fnatic. They acknowledged talk of a move to Fnatic between Alive and Fnatic translator Brian Hyun Choi, but only as part of an informal conversation between friends.
Coach Lee would speak to Gamechosun once again to make a counter-argument against Fnatic's statement. Through the new article, coach Lee claimed that Alive had talked with Fnatic translator Brian Choi and general manager Elroy Pinto while he was still living at the TSL team house. Lee claims that Alive did not talk to him about his departure from the team, and Fnatic consulted only Alive while discussing a possible move.
Though Coach Lee admitted that there was no official offer, he argued that Fnatic was aware of loopholes Alive was trying to exploit but stayed silent. According to Coach Lee, Alive and Brian Choi had talked about about a transfer free that might be required, and also found a method where Coach Lee could be bypassed by having Alive leave TSL officially, then join Fnatic.
Coach Lee offered both conciliatory and threatening comments towards Fnatic: "The player is most at fault, so I don't want relations with Fnatic to grow any worse... ...I haven't heard a single word of apology from Fnatic regarding the canceled partnership or this row with Alive. Also, they made an announcement that was completely untrue. If they continue to deny the truth and refuse to apologize, I am willing to come forth with evidence."
Regarding Alive, Coach lee stated "I feel very betrayed, but I hope this doesn't affect his play. I didn't want this to come out before his GSL games, so I'm a sorry it came to be this way... ...I've spent over 6,000,000 won on just his foreign tournament participation. That's how much I valued him as a player, so how could I let this issue pass over easily? It's like being in a nightmare."
Related to this issue was a tentative partnership between Fnatic and TSL that never came to light. According to Coach Lee, the partnership was almost a done deal, with only an official announcement left. Fnatic explained that they were indeed exploring a partnership with a Korean team, with TSL as a candidate. However, they decided that the cost was prohibitive and decided to pursue options.
Full statement from Fnatic:
From fnatic.com
The last few hours have created a lot of discussion on Fnatic, TSL, Coach Lee and aLive. Today Coach Lee announced that Fnatic have officially contracted aLive and as such we have already taken him in our roster. He has also spoken about how we approached him about a house share, somewhere for our players to train and we ended up stealing aLive from him. We feel it is only fair to share our side of the story as a lot of accusations have come up against Fnatic stealing players
The truth is that we had been talking to Coach Lee for a few months about potentially sharing his house and paying for the training and beds. Coach Lee had been most encouraging and enthusiastic with this idea and we fully respect his skills as a manager. It is also true that at this time we were approached by other Korean teams who had expressed interest in working with us. Eventually we decided to not go ahead with a house sharing deal as it was too expensive and we realised we could maybe do things in a different way for 2012. We did not even finalize our terms.
aLive is a fantastic player and we admire his skill, aLive did chat to our translator - Brian Hyun Choi , who is his friend, never with a formal offer it was a casual conversation between two friends. It is important to note that we have not signed any contract with aLive as we know he has a contract with TSL. We are in fact very sad that things had to take a public recourse as communication between TSL and Fnatic had never broken down. It seems Mr Lee wants to close the door.
Furthermore aLive never decided to leave TSL for Fnatic he left the team house out of his own personal reasons with Coach Lee and those are not related to us, neither do we have any interest in knowing the reasons.
In conclusion we highly respect both Mr Lee and aLives talents, and from Fnatic's side we will strive to work for an amicable deal with Coach Lee.
Sources: Fnatic, Gamechosun 1, Gamechosun 2
