The Quarterfinals of this Worlds has been upset after upset with both KT, RNG and AFS losing to the underdogs of this round. One of the most surprising outcomes was G2, a 3rd seed from EU, beating RNG in a best of 5. RNG was heavily favored to take this Tournament's Trophy to complete their set for the year however the unexpected EU team had completely denied them. Shortly after their defeat, discussions were sparked all over the social media platform of RNG throwing the games on purpose (to benefit from Esports betting) or the coach Heart taking bribes or even a family member of the players being kidnapped. These type of discussions have topped weibo's trending section netting a few million "tweets" today.

The first weibo post explains that it isn't a surprise that RNG lost seeing as this resulted in a 5-10 billion yuan profit for the biggest betting platform. This results in 2-3 billion yuan being distributed to RNG if they had made a deal prior, seeing as Esports teams have huge expenses and are a big investment in general, it isn't surprising the upper manager and owners of the team made the decision to throw the series.

The second wechat conversation emphasizes on the fact that the betting odds are immensely high for RNG losing so much so that many people will go bankrupt should RNG win.

A journalist from a Chinese Esports Media site expressed on his weibo for people to stop spreading incredulous rumors pointing out that betting platforms exist to earn profit from fees and that most warnings for fake matches in sports like soccer are issued by these companies. As an esports team if you solicitate these platforms to work out some sort of a deal, you would be arrested in minutesl. There are fake matches played in sports but is it unlikely in high level sports. It has to do with patriotism, and the sheer amount of spectators would cause tremendous difficulties to orchestrate, not to mention if discovered, the player's careers come to an immediate end. He ends by saying that Esports players have a salary of from a few million to tens of millions a year so the risk would not be worth it. He advises netizens to stop spreading these false rumors.





"关于RNG假赛的报道，也和大家同步一下，没有假赛，也不会有请大家也注意一下相关的信息哈 确实输了比赛 都很难过 但绝对不会去做这种罪恶之极的事儿的"





An official statement from a member of Tencent has also denied the allegations of any match fixing and that it will never happen. "Even though it was a heartbreaking loss, this kind of fiendish behavior is absolutely not tolerated."







The official RNG Weibo account has also just made a public statement regarding this matter. The brief translation of this statement:



Regarding our performance at 2018 Worlds, we once again apologize to our fans. We will accept any criticism and will reflect on our mistakes. There are currently some false rumors regarding RNG and match fixing, these are very serious accusations which we are astounded and furious by. In the 6 years since our conception, we have always maintained a "fairplay" and "never give up" atiitude that we will never betray. Regarding these baseless and irresponsible claims, we will pursue legal actions to redeem our team and players' reputations. Regarding our loss we will make the necessary adjustments, we thank our fans and are sorry for disapointing you. We hope you will continue to support us.





Written by: Benson Cheng @1337sn1per