Lionscreed officially kicked out of the NLC

Following the recent public allegations about failing to meet financial obligations, Lionscreed is officially no longer in the NLC.

Image Credit: Lionscreed

Lionscreed failed to resolve issues to retain NLC spot

The official announcement came from the NLC which mentioned the organization failed to meet the deadline set on June 2 to resolve the issues. On top of that, the team didn’t complete a roster for the Summer split and missed the roster lock deadlines given to them.

With Lionscreed out of the league, the NLC decided to reward the winner of NLC Division 2, BlueWhites, with the vacant slot. The team accepted and will be joining the NLC as the newest entry.

Lionscreed’s allegations explained

But how did Lionscreed end up in the crossfire? Everything started when former Zero Tenacity coach Kim “Eunko” Eun-seok published a post on X, stating that staff and players’ payments were delayed. According to Sheeo Esports, Lionscreed had paid out most of the contractual obligations thanks to the team’s manager Robin “Robinho” Cheng.

Eunko also revealed on X evidence of CEO Abdiqani H. Ahmed and manager Robinho attempting to delete his posts on the social media platform, asking to also issue a clarification about his previous statements.

Regardless of the negotiations, players and staff in the end were the ones heavily affected by the delayed salaries, which were shown in the 1 – 5 result at EMEA Masters. According to the report by Sheep Esports, players considered playing without the branding of Lionscreed given the failed financial obligations. Before the start of the summer split, jungle Kim “Yohan” Yo-han had already left the organization, joining the NASR in the TCL.

While the organization tried to explore new options to field a team for the summer split, the announcement by the tournament organizer confirmed that Lionscreed will no longer be a part of the NLC.