ex-Winstrike left fuming over failed deal
A move to an organisation fell through at the last minute despite the players having already signed their contracts.
ex-Winstrike have been dealt a serious blow after seeing a CIS-based organisation back out of a deal to sign the team at the last minute. According to head coach Dmitry "hooch" Bogdanov, the players had agreed to terms with this unnamed organisation – described by the 34-year-old as "very respected and quite successful in the CIS region" – and put their signatures on the contracts when they were informed that the deal was off.
"We started counting the days until the official announcement of our future team when the sad news came," hooch wrote in a Twitlonger post. "They said that the contracts would not be signed because the organisation does not have a budget for our team.
"Yes, you read that right, they signed us first, and then they said they had no money. I've always thought that professional sports teams and normal esports teams have a shareholder meeting every quarter to make decisions on the transfer policy and plans for the future of the company, and only after that do they decide to buy or sell players. But I guess that anything is possible in CIS esports."
The Russian team will continue their search for a new home after leaving Winstrike at the end of March following "constant breaches of contractual obligations". hooch lamented that the players are back to square one after being pressured by this organisation into rejecting the other offers they had on the table.
"I wish organizations would respect players and not try to get rich using slave contracts and making empty promises every day," he said.
"There is not much we can do about it, though. We can cry and accuse the whole world of unfair treatment because we do our job honestly and train six days a week in order to become better, and such situations are very frustrating. Or we can continue training hard and working."
ex-Winstrike, who have held the No.22 spot in the world rankings since March 1, finished runners-up to mousesports on Wednesday in Snow Sweet Snow 3 and are in contention for a spot in ESL Pro League Season 14, having qualified for the ESEA Premier playoffs after topping their group with a 7-1 record.
ex-Winstrike, who can be contacted by email, look as follows:
Aleksey "El1an" Gusev
Viktor "Lack1" Boldyrev
Aleksey "NickelBack" Trofimov
Vladislav "Krad" Kravchenko
Igor "Forester" Bezotecheskiy
Dmitry "hooch" Bogdanov (coach)