It became known that the ESIC commission, which monitors compliance with the principles of fair play in e-sports, announced the lifting of restrictions on Spirit coach Sergey “hally” Shavaeva. This decision was made on September 4. This was confirmed by the coach's lawyer Dejan Minich.
Thus, hally will again be able to perform his duties at official tournaments held by the organizers – ESIC members. This also applies to the upcoming RMR Europe A on October 4 - 9, where Spirit will compete for a place at the IEM Rio Major.
In May, hally was suspended from participating in official tournaments due to the fact that during one of his matches in 2019, a static version of the “coach bug” was activated in one round. At the same time, a similar decision was made regarding Louis “peacemaker” Tadeu and Rafael "zakk" Fernandez. By September, hally was the last of the three still banned from major tournaments. The peacemaker's restrictions were lifted on May 28, as his sentence was reduced following expert opinions. Zakk's ban ended in June after testimony from another coach confirmed his innocence.
As Hally's lawyer explained, since July they have been trying to prove to ESIC that the punishment is too harsh. Minich argued that the coach made a mistake by not reporting the bug, but did not use it to gain an advantage in the game and could not see the opposing players. ESIC did not officially respond to the statement sent by Minich, but eventually lifted the ban from him a month earlier than originally planned.
