After the elimination of Natus Vincere from StarLadder i-leagues’s eighth season, another dark cloud of trouble has appeared.

It has been a lousy week for Natus Vincere in CS:GO. They are one of the first teams to get eliminated from the StarSeries i-League season eight, and if that wasn’t enough, talks have been happening about the team’s conduct in the global community.

A StarLadder referee who was present with Natus Vincere during the matches has reportedly shared information about their behavior and conduct during the games. During the eighth season matches, he observed some bad habits about certain big players and shared them on Telegram.

This referee allegedly sent a couple of messages to his Telegram group about the conduct of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács, and Na’Vi’s coach Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy. He, in the messages, talked about s1mple’s toxic behavior, GuardiaN tilting during matches, and Blad3 displaying toxicity towards in-game leader Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov.

“S1mple is responsible for discipline, but he’s raging at teammates,” the referee said in the first message. “And everyone is afraid to stop him. GuardiaN tilts so much; he can’t kill. Trapped in this cycle.”

The referee further said that “B1ad3 made a pause and asked Boombl4 to start being a captain and not just a player.”

Even if the report is not genuine, it is a fact that Natus Vincere lost during StarSeries i-League season eight. There has to be some causality behind that. Because Natus Vincere is a powerhouse with every player being individually talented. The team lost two matches to Heroic and G2. S1mple was clearly not happy by the events, and frustration could be visibly seen on his face.

If what the referee said is true, then all the speculation of the fans is not correct. The fans of Natus Vincere thought that the team’s former captain, Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko, was the main reason behind the slowdown of the team and for the team not being able to perform to its maximum potential. Maybe it was Zeus who was actually trying to hold the team together.

S1mple’s past has not exactly been spotless. He was known to be a toxic player when he was young, but he couldn’t be seen doing the same activities again. He changed his behavior, which yielded in him becoming the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player on the planet in 2018. According to the StarLadder referee, things have changed, and s1mple has once again caught his old habits.

After the incident, the referee has deleted his Telegram group, and there have been no statements regarding the same from the StarLadder’s official representatives.