The following is a column and is subject to the opinions and biases of the author.

It’s hard for me to be objective in discussing this subject.

Fairness and transparency are paramount to me as a professional, and as a person. This is the case to such an extreme, that it has gotten me in trouble in my professional life. The world is not a meritocracy, and the truth doesn’t matter as much as it should sometimes.

I didn’t actually understand how significant integrity was to my core identity until IPL5. It was at this tournament that several Korean coaches and managers explained to me I had become renowned in Korea for my fairness and justness when making rulings. Some went so far as to call me the best tournament admin in the StarCraft scene.

I was a bit overwhelmed, to be honest, I actually almost cried. The degree to which their comments touched me made me realize that the reputation that I had earned was exactly the one that I wanted. I then realized that integrity was the value I realized I always had, but never understood. And esports has lacked that value for basically its entire existence.

A New Hope

When I first interviewed for Riot Esports, I sat in a room with a number of people who I knew I could learn from, and I was excited. Whalen Rozelle, Dustin Beck, Rich Greenhill, and even my friend, Nick Allen. Nick knew what I would already tell everyone else: what you see is what you get. I am blunt, I am honest, I don’t play “the game”, I have integrity to a fault, and I don’t want to work at a place where I have to play “the game”. I was there to learn, improve, and to create the most value I possibly could given my skillset. No more and no less.

Politics, pride, and the game destroyed IPL. I was not going to go through that again. And I was assured, that I wouldn’t have to.

And for a while they were right.

Riot did things the right way. They treated employees and players fairly, they were open with decisions, they gave feedback, they received feedback. The room was small enough that everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew every decision that was going on, and everyone felt welcome to give input. It was a time of accountability and the feeling of startup culture I felt at Riot mirrored the one I felt at IPL.

People gave a shit and we were really good at what we did. Despite how overworked we were, and how much we still had to learn, we were passionate about doing things the right way. It felt like a dream job.

Somewhere along the way, it felt like we lost sight of that.

Riot Esports eventually became very bogged down by negative politics, and soon, with a disturbing frequency, it seemed like people tried to get an edge by out-politicking their co-workers and friends. Above all, I really didn’t like the decisions we were making anymore. More than that, I didn’t like how we were making them.

By February of this year, I honestly couldn’t take it anymore. I felt sick just to go to work.

My experience at Riot made me wonder, can any large scale corporation, even one based around the ideas of Riot’s friendly culture, thrive while keeping its identity? Because after my experience I am having my doubts.

This is the lens with which I view Montecristo’s recent video, and the Renegades ban situation. Because I feel that the Riot I joined in 2013 would have handled this situation in a completely different manner than the 2016 Riot did. And at least in this domain, the growth of Riot does not seem to be for the better.

The Incident

I actually don’t think Monte or Riot will like this article very much, but given my current status, where I am free of affiliations, I feel compelled to discuss it.

Let me start off by saying, I think everyone involved made mistakes: Monte, Riot, Badawi, maybe even Bryce Blum. I say this with one caveat: My conclusions are based around Monte being truthful in his video about the extent of the communication he had with Riot. If he forgot, neglected, or lied about any other correspondences, then that would make me feel a lot differently.

I do believe that Monte is telling the truth though, because his incentive to lie at this point is minimal. He gains nothing by saying the things about Riot he has, and he might actually be opening himself to potential liability, particularly if the evidence he produced is fabricated. Assuming Monte is telling the truth, I am disappointed in this whole ordeal.

But I also believe that Riot is telling the truth. How can I reconcile these things? Read on…

When I was working at Riot, I started to hear personal accounts of some of the things Badawi was doing. Given that I was friendly with Monte, he had shown me kindness and we came up around the same time in the WarCraft III scene, I felt a bit of an affinity towards him, and wanted to give him a heads up about who he was doing business with. But I didn’t really think we were that close.

I did have some mutual friends with Monte, and I thought if they believed that Badawi was not a genuine person, they might convince Monte. Of course I couldn’t violate protected information I had gained as a Rioter, and I couldn’t instruct them to do anything. By this point, there were publicized accounts of his alleged transgressions, and I didn’t really have much I could say about them.

I honestly don’t know if the posts made a difference to Monte or those close to him. To be fair, most people (including the LoL community) believed in Badawi even after that Gamespot expose, so I really can’t fault anyone for their opinions about Badawi one way or another.

Either way, it became clear to me Monte trusted Chris Badawi, and that trust is the original sin of all things Renegades. I can understand how those from outside Riot would trust him. The first ruling didn’t do a lot to convince people of his wrongdoing, and Badawi frequently interacted with the community (although I didn’t think it was entirely honestly). But all that aside, Monte trusted him.

Even after Badawi was banned from being an LCS owner, Monte trusted Badawi enough that he made him the CEO of the LoL team, while (I assume) Badawi was still (part) owner of the rest of the Renegades franchise. What is more likely: that Chris Badawi is a dishonest person, or that the entirety of NA League of Legends esports scene conspired to oust him from the League?

Given that nearly every team owner in the league at the time spoke out against him, you have to pick one. Sure maybe some owners embellished charges against him, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say literally every single owner completely fabricated elaborate stories simply because this guy was a players rights advocate. There are a number of those in the scene that don’t become targets of libel.

After Badawi’s recent AMA, he seems to have destroyed his own credibility with the community, so I don’t need to bury him further; but for the purpose of this article, I wanted to establish that I believe Chris Badawi is untrustworthy.

So with that in mind, let’s go through my theory of the timeline of events.

Ignorance is not bliss

Following Chris Badawi’s nearly two year ban from LCS ownership, Montecristo was given ownership of the Renegades LCS team, and Badawi ran day-to-day operations. His contributions were augmented by the coaching and management staff. Riot Games knew of Badawi’s prior unscrupulous behavior, but assuming Riot’s most recent REN competitive ruling is accurate, Badawi was allegedly continuing his unsavory behavior, even after his initial ban. I don’t know exactly what Riot found on him, as I had left the company by that point, but to me it is extremely likely that one of the following things happened:

Either: 1. Badawi undermined Monte’s authority as owner and made dealings without his knowledge or consent (as he was legally able to do as CEO of the company with power of attorney); or 2. he helped hide misconduct within the team from Monte. Why do I think this? Because in all the time I worked at Riot, they were never flat out wrong about something. They may have handled things less than ideally, and/or communicated poorly, but the judgment of the LCS in its rulings was always based in fact.

So if Monte and Riot are both telling the truth, then something Monte doesn’t know about led Riot to believe that REN players were being placed in harm’s way, that TDK and REN had co-mingled finances, and that Chris Badawi thought that Monte promised him a piece of the team. Of course those aren’t the only options. The other options are that either Riot and/or Monte are outrageous liars. But I don’t find either of those possibilities credible.

I do believe Monte when he says that he didn’t know about the issues that Riot discovered, which leads us to Riot’s biggest mistake — their willingness to believe Monte was complicit in Badawi’s misdealings.

Innocent until investigated

Riot didn’t need Monte to say anything incriminating for their ruling. They didn’t get anything from him that would prove his guilt in any part of the judgments (at least from the communications that Monte shared). So by the time Whalen and Chopper got around to wanting to have voice time with him, they had everything they needed to ban the team (at least in their view).

As an investigator, and one who values the integrity of the league and its teams, why wouldn’t you want a more complete timeline of events? If Monte was complicit in the misconduct, wouldn’t you want to catch him in a lie that proves it? And if he was simply negligent, wouldn’t you want to know what he knew and when? If a league discovers that an officer of a team has essentially performed a hostile takeover and is involved in unethical behavior, don’t you have a duty to notify the true owner?

This to me is the biggest mistake Riot made. Whether they assumed Monte was in on Badawi’s misconduct, or they didn’t care, if they had interviewed Monte about the facts of the case it would have been better for everyone involved. They could have cleared up discrepancies, see if they caught Monte in a lie, or uncover what (if anything) Monte knew about Badawi’s misconduct and when he discovered it. They might have even had Monte give a joint statement with them, or work with them to clean up his team.

You can’t actually blame Riot for not doing this though. Given that they had already built (in their mind) an iron-clad case against the Renegades organization, they didn’t actually need anything from Monte anymore. In addition, it’s not hard to see that Monte’s open criticism towards Riot and sometimes dismissive attitude towards the Western LoL scene hasn’t endeared him to Riot Esports. So why waste more resources on additional investigative time?

And therein lies the problem. I can’t actually tell if communicating the truth to either the accused, or the community, is important to Riot. At times, it appears to be against the company’s interest. Otherwise, why would they not complete their due diligence? Did Hunter and Avi make a mistake somewhere? I actually have a lot respect for both of them. But I don’t know the details of how they investigated.

I only know what they didn’t investigate (assuming Monte is telling the truth) and there is a huge gap there (at least publicly).

Save your receipts

I think a lot of this could have been avoided if Renegades and Team Dragon Knights had been more diligent with their paper trail, and this leads me to the next mistake — Not having a paper assignment contract.

What Bryce and Monte both stated is true: a verbal agreement between two parties is legally binding. And from that perspective, TDK and REN were covered as far as their player trade; legally and procedurally they did nothing wrong. But a verbal agreement is not enough for Riot in the interests of the LCS. And the lack of a written agreement at the time of the transaction clearly made Riot suspicious. It’s explicitly stated by Avi in the email after Bryce clarifies the trade timeline.

Given the history of Riot’s biases against Renegades, I would have documented every conversation between owners, every transaction, every interaction, through audio or paper, so that when the time came, I could prove to Riot when everything happened.

And this is where I can’t figure out Riot’s thought process. Where did TDK and REN become intermixed? Did Badawi attempt to buy TDK without Monte’s knowledge? Did he offer them something on the side in order for the trade to go through? Was there coercion of some kind? Threats? Are Chris Badawi and Suge Knight the same person? I have no idea. But something unseemly happened here. And unless Badawi has a sudden inkling to tell the truth, or Riot goes back on its word to protect sources, I doubt we’ll ever know the connection Riot has made between TDK and REN.

It’s clear Monte doesn’t know. In his mind he had a legitimate reason for the late-season trade (and it makes a lot of sense considering Ninja’s ban), and TDK ownership has been silent on the issue (Why is that? Not sure…). But in any case, it would have been beneficial for REN to document their legal steps given the level of scrutiny Riot had for the REN organization.

Overall though, the biggest mistakes were by Chris Badawi. He assumed he would have an ownership role at the end of his ban, he threatened Remilia and potentially caused other incidents in the team house, he convinced Riot through his interviews that he had been up to more foul play, and he thought he would get away with it.

In my estimation, Montecristo ended up as collateral damage in Riot’s campaign to oust the most horrid team owner in the history of the LCS, and one of the most scummy individuals in the history of esports. We are better off without Chris Badawi, but I can’t shake the feeling that Riot could have done more for Monte to both parties’ mutual benefit.

Even if he was blind and negligent to Badawi’s misdealings, I don’t think he deserves a year ban for it. If there were misdeeds being done under his watch, then yes he deserves to be punished for it, but I can’t help but feel this was not the cleanest possible solution.

Consider this: the US government jails innocent people, it has even executed innocent people. Do we think that Riot Games will never make a mistake in an investigation for its entire existence? And what happens when a different publisher creates an LCS-style league and runs investigations in this manner and makes mistakes? What will happen to team owners and players then? Given no transparency and no appeals process, there is no way a Riot-made mistake can ever be corrected.

If the police ask me to go downtown, you bet I’m asking for my lawyer. And if I’m arrested, and police start asking me questions, I will direct them to my lawyer. How’s the weather, you ask? I don’t know. Ask my lawyer.

Asking to bring in your lawyer into a conversation with league officials is never (NEVER!) a bad thing, and that attitude has to stop.

So some feedback for Riot:

Yes, you likely made the right decision, and yes you got rid of a blight on competitive League, but transparency is not a bad thing.

Frank Fields is an esports industry veteran of 12+ years and has worked with IPL, Blizzard and Riot Games. Follow him on Twitter @FFMirhi