This week, the thematic press actively discussed the situation related to the conflict of interest between the teams participating in the qualifying tournament ESL: Road to Rio. MIBR and YeaH were supposed to perform at one event! Gaming, and several participants in the first are co-owners of the second. Previously, they tried to exclude the occurrence of such situations at tournaments. For example, in 2018, FACEIT Major introduced a rule according to which teams had to report such connections themselves.
The initiator of this approach was Valve, but recently it has increasingly abandoned strict criteria, transferring the decision-making power to tournament operators. Commenting on the situation with MIBR and YeaH! Gaming, representatives of Valve reported that they will not interfere with it – the issue must be decided by the tournament organizer, in this case ESL. As a result, both teams, despite the connection between them, received the right to participate.
Thus, it became clear that the rule, which Valve had previously insisted on, is now advisory in nature. On the one hand, this creates some threat to fair play, for example, during draws and or qualifying tournaments in which teams of the same owner may meet. At the same time, looser rules regarding teams representing the same organization will provide an opportunity for youth teams to return to tournaments.
