Addressing Tainted Minds Official Statement

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ueN3cKGHmhUhGwBoDjyAW59uC0VinmMykJ1oiu1E7I/edit?usp=sharing



“by the time of mediation with Riot on February 6, 2017, it appeared the majority of the issues had been resolved”

The reason why we were back in the Riot office following the week of mediation was because TM we’re again saying that issues were resolved when they weren't. We still had no extra council bins, power in the house was still tripping, we still had internet issues, we still didn’t have the pc’s we were promised. 3 times random people showed up at the house, we didn’t know when they’d be coming and we'd lose practice. We didn't know when people would be coming. So most importantly.. we were still NOT ABLE TO PERFORM OUR JOBS OUTLINED IN OUR AGREEMENTS. Which in turn, would not enable the players to perform to the best of their ability and after 4 weeks of the OPL and no practice prior/already, this was resulting in damaging performances of the entire team. THIS is why the players were unhappy and decided to leave and terminate their contracts. The fact they still won their match week 4 means LITERALLY NOTHING. The players were still in the same position they had been in for the past two months, despite being reassured(*lied to) and told that everything would be ready for them the moment they got here two months ago. The players were INCREDIBLY LENIENT and patient the entire two months, they gave TM a extra 30 days on top of the original 30 days to remedy the issues within the agreements as well as provide them with a suitable working environment so that they could perform their jobs and TM failed. The fact the players could not maintain a proper professional practice schedule or environment is not a minor issue. It is a MAJOR issue.



“Because of this, the notices of termination came as a complete surprise to Tainted Minds”



If this is actually true, the termination came as a “complete surprise” to tainted minds for the sole reason that THEY PAID NO ATTENTION OR CARE TO THE PLAYERS THE ENTIRE TIME. They looked down on the players, treated them with disrespect and looked to cut corners wherever possible. Not to mention that the Coach already left due to his contract being breached a few weeks before?? He even made public tweets about it and advised TM that the players wanted to quit and it would be likely to follow soon.



“Tainted Minds was advised by their legal counsel that the grounds disclosed for termination were not legally sufficient”

If that were the case and they were not in agreeance to their legal termination, then they can take it up with a court of law. We terminated the contracts with assistance from a lawyer too! One that actually works and practices within Australia too, not one that works and practices in New Zealand.



“resolve their contracts to become free agents or to arrange a transfer to another team.”

If the agreements were terminated, THEN THERE IS NOTHING MORE TO DISCUSS, there is no agreement anymore. This is standard practice, AROUND THE WORLD. Also, See point above



“Amicable” is far from the correct word to be used there and you know it



Let me start off this next section by showing to you the timeline I gave TM which was agreed upon to my understanding / never denied or given another one:



August 13th was OPL finals in Brisbane where discussions for next year began in person between Nick Bobir and myself. We were having discussions about the house and next year again on September 9 where they were planning on going forward with a house, without a manager in the house to which I advised against. http://puu.sh/uVQW7/26cfc989a8.png + http://puu.sh/uVQYP/82ea3f7e11.png



At this stage i’d let them know and we were all going forward with the understanding that I wanted to have international players signed by the end of october (to line up with NA contracting window), wanted the players in the house by the start November/at latest end november so that the players had enough time to settle in and adjust to a different country, we could properly run trials for the remaining spots of the roster (November), the house had enough time to settle in and get used to living with each other and establishing routine (December), and be completely ready for starting full time scrims come January so that we had around one month to get focused on the team play before heading into the first split and essentially making sure we were fully prepared and at our best from the get go into the OPL as most teams in OCE are not this organized and it would have definitely given us the upper hand.



October 11 I start my long saga of follow ups -



http://puu.sh/uVR90/abca795c62.png

http://puu.sh/uVYVL/22550754de.png follow up 14th Oct

http://puu.sh/uVZ1j/fabb50f4f3.png follow up 16th Oct

http://puu.sh/uVZ3m/efa9798b5e.png follow up 17th Oct

http://puu.sh/uVZbF/1f4a13a438.png 18th found out they weren’t planning on having a final agreement ready for the players because they haven't figured out things yet



1. First of all, the gaming house was selected as a collective between Tainted Minds upper management, Inero, Cake, ShorterACE and myself at the time as that was everyone involved at that time. How can Tainted Minds say that they didn’t select the house, when they were the ones who applied for the property, went to inspect it, and signed the lease? The internationals rightfully would not sign contracts without a house being in place. They also needed to sign contracts to initiate and start their VISA applications. So there was a lot of things hanging on acquiring a house for the team. We ended up with a selection of a final 3 houses. I’m honestly appalled that Tainted Minds can try to twist my excitement for the future into them being manipulated by me? Like what? In the end they are the business owners and will always have final say? What you can see in those logs are excitement, not ultimatums? Anyway we got to 3 houses, originally we all agreed to go forward with one house, which in the end the owners denied the application because they did not want 6 males living in their home (https://puu.sh/ud7Xk/23e6a957a1.png ). Which left two houses left, one only being available to move into towards mid/end December, and then the house we ended up in which was available immediately. We also went forward with this house with the expectation and understanding that Tainted Minds would sign for a half year lease and spend this time finding and setting up a more suitable house for everyone. https://puu.sh/ue8Qh/79c437581b.jpg

So, yes, I was fairly adamant on signing that house (keep in mind I had never been inside the house or performed an inspection) based off the information I knew, which was we’re already behind our timeline and if we are only able to get into a gaming house by mid-end December what we were all working towards would not have been possible.



I advised TM two weeks prior about investigating the state of the internet in the house. I also don’t see how asking the full sentence “Nbn?” is specifically asking if it was NBN ready. All I’d done at that point in time was put the address into the “Check your Address” page provided by the NBN network, to which it said it was ready.



I was not included in this email sent on the 11th of November??



The offer on January 12th was declined because the next week we played our first OPL match and didn’t see how packing up a whole house with 7 people in it would fit into this, especially when it would be to new housing where you’d have to wait a estimated 7-14 days for internet to be connected. We were also still under the impression that Tainted Minds were looking for another home for us to move into as they originally told us that was what they were going to do: https://puu.sh/ue8Qh/79c437581b.jpg



2. We moved in the 4th, I sent this email on the 7th where I notified you 3 days in of the issues (power points, bins, laundry as well as a spicy response to my dinner table + curtains request)

http://puu.sh/uVX3z/3aa420ea43.png + http://puu.sh/uVX4e/73bfcd2393.png

http://puu.sh/uVXdn/efd80be72f.png



So from that initial notice, you had two weeks to make progress on the issues before the 22nd and businesses left for holidays. Explain to me how they were still present in Feb



3. The portable air conditioning unit provided on the 6th was not capable of cooling the size of the practice room let alone with all of the players in it as well as the pc’s and monitors all giving off heat. Here I am again trying to explain that the aircon is not suitable for it’s purpose. http://puu.sh/uVXJ3/fadeb117aa.png

We were suggested to hang our clothing off the balcony around our house, which would 1) not fit pegs so there would be no way to secure the clothing and prevent it from blowing away and 2) was rusty to the point where you’d just need to wash your clothes again if you hung them on it if not completely damage the clothing. So we were not interested in doing that, I suggested clothes horses inside to which I ended up buying one myself anyway.





4. TM claim that the contracts are “poorly written”, when they were unable to provide LEGAL contracts prior for even australian residents let alone international. Prior to this the 20 year old Tainted Minds Operations Manager, Voltris, wrote the contracts. http://puu.sh/uVOZA/b71d643fe7.png + http://puu.sh/uVP1p/744f61067e.png

Tainted Minds were given every opportunity to read over the contracts and have legal advice of their own until they were happy with them (they even stipulated intentions of doing so) with them when they handed them over to the other parties to sign(players, coach and myself), at no point did I send of contracts to anyone without their approval or them being cc’d into the email itself. They’ve since decided now that they’re unhappy with them because they are failing to uphold their end of what they agreed to. Seems convenient, did they forget that they too signed the agreements? I’d also like to congratulate them again on showing me working my ass off to help them meet deadlines and do work I shouldn’t have had to do with those screenshots. If they had done this work then I would have never had to step in and try my best to help out, they were also free at any point to turn away my help and assistance. If they wanted to have a chance at getting international players, we weren't going to be able to get them to sign based off a letter of engagement and without a house secured. The friend of mine also did not want to deal with other people



I don’t deny that I was reluctant to pass on his details to ™,. However I was doing this based off his request. I still found other ways to try to answer ™’s questions about him. TM have since released his name publicly as well after not wanting to be named. http://puu.sh/uVYDv/27300b2f02.png + http://puu.sh/uVYHO/92a7211425.png



TM also forgot to include the following bit to their image, http://puu.sh/uVZy0/212f677afe.png



And these: http://puu.sh/uVZNE/8d451266d5.png + http://puu.sh/uVZQV/c14a61da7a.png + http://puu.sh/uVZS9/56aa579360.png + http://puu.sh/uVZTB/8770148e58.png + http://puu.sh/uVZWV/7159778074.png



5. We had been waiting for extra power points to be installed in the house since we moved in. TM had failed to still get an electrician into the house to do this for 3 months. You had confirmation in your own image ( https://i.gyazo.com/b39ce89b0d654587e0758e8a88921465.png) that you were given permission to install the extra powerpoints AT YOUR OWN COST, I’d be happy to bet that to this day there still aren’t any extra powerpoints installed and they’re still daisy chaining 5 pc’s off one powerpoint. TM also never investigated this themselves or got anyone in to investigate it, they were happy to just leave it as “don’t use the aircon while you’re washing your clothing” and “don't use kitchen appliances even though you have to cook dinner while the players have scrims”. I’m glad they stumbled across some form of a fix randomly while rearranging the house later!!! Regardless we still would have needed a monitor or TV for after scrim discussions within the practice room.



6. I alerted TM to the fact that internet installation takes roughly two weeks on November 21st, after they lied about applying for the house because this was my first concern after getting the house secured. https://puu.sh/ud9HW/86fe4fa9cb.png https://puu.sh/ud27D/5e9ab4064f.png https://puu.sh/ud3a7/f5b4d41bff.png house secured 1 month later https://puu.sh/ueb8H/ee45595a5c.jpg



https://puu.sh/ud9Q5/beb8033a2f.png There was also no dongle provided to the house when we got there (which they also said they would have in place as a backup if there was in fact NO internet at all). I had to go out and get it and pay / set up the plan in my own name to provide it to the house myself. They also said that they would have two internet lines before moving into the house, to which they never did until we experienced issues. And when we requested for a second line, they then go and sign up to a FRIENDS internet service provider which ended up experiencing the same line ussies instead of getting iinet which was the one everyone in the house asked for.



I’m also confident and what was relayed to myself by the players was that they experienced almost continuous packet loss throughout the entire day, with the WORST hours being in the evening. For practice at the level of gameplay and the level of the teams we were scrimming with, this was unacceptable. The players scrimmed with internet like this for a week until it unfortunately broke mentality and atmosphere within the house. They tried their best and it just wasn’t something to be continued for the TM players, and for the respect to the other teams we were scrimming with.



7. I’m not sure which temporary PC’s they think they provided immediately after moving in on December 4. There was ONE computer provided the week after their arrival, and a the following week later a Mini Nuc was provided. The computers the players used were MY personal computer and a friend of mines personal computer, all arranged by myself. They managed to get a computer somewhere to offer, but offered it WITHOUT A HARD DRIVE and then asked me if that was ok as if I was supposed to find a hard drive for it? I was never considered for the ENTIRETY of my stay in the gaming house despite having the same computer the players had in my contract. The Lenovo Cubes were provided at the end of December, literally the day before offices went on holidays. These were also not the computers the players were told they would receive before flying over. I am confident anyone will agree with me as well that a “High End” gaming computer these days will have THE MINIMUM of a SSD for the operating system to run on. They also failed to mention the Cubes only had 8GB RAM which in my mind is also not “High End”. The Cubes we received were floor stock from expo’s and the at the lowest specifications available for Lenovo’s “new and latest” gaming PC. I had to reformat one of them because after calling Lenovo to find out the password on the PC we found out we couldn’t access the internet on it because of restrictions for EXPO use. TM were also intending on these being the computers they provided to the players. So essentially robbing the players of around $2.5+k value each from their previously agreed upon agreement. They also never had any intentions on providing the players with 144hz monitors. When we received the Cubes the Lenovo rep actually said that they had only discussed a total of 5 pc’s and no monitors. So without me bringing this to their attention the computers would have arrived without monitors- just before the holidays.



8. When we moved in in December, we were told that the chairs would be temporary, however no date was given for when we would have gaming chairs by. I think it’s fair to say that nobody expected over 4-5 months wait.



9. I don’t believe the landlord coming in and looking at the place is sufficient proof or investigation to the mould issues. I had two companies willing to come in and inspect/test the place for free, to which the landlord refused to do because they believed that his judgement was good enough. TM did not follow up this at all. It’s a free inspection? What’s to lose?



10. Each room of the house has at least one small office bin.-> These are bins I bought for the players off of the back of TM saying they will get back to me after my request for a dinner table. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have provided them. Your image also only states that you’re providing the house with one recycling bin, what has now happened to the large red bin? Is that just not coming anymore?



11. You provided these things because I continuously asked you for them. You wouldn’t have otherwise. Also, after buying the curtains for us they arrived the wrong curtains- to which I then had to spend a whole day and a half returning them to a spotlight store and getting the right curtains for the entire house and installing them myself. You arranged AND PAID a stranger to come and take the laundry across the road to avoid proving that you needed me to do this for the month of December when I asked to be properly paid for my work- to which players clothing went missing and we were given back clothing which wasn’t ours/had garments damaged. The online shopping account also came to prove this same point to avoid having to pay me for work i’d done in December, when you’d provided me a Costco card to which you cannot order online for, so up until this point you were happy for me to go to the shops to do the shopping.



This image: https://i.gyazo.com/ac5a1cc9575485ffa16db8aad3b90dd1.png, is also a cut out from one of my emails to you guys asking for support / following up on things. I don’t see how this proves your case or supports it in any way. I was also told that the landlord was ok for you to install wall mounted air conditioning units, the hesitation came on your behalf because it would be “too pricy”. The day we moved in John also said that he would look into getting wall air conditioning units installed at both ends of the house and in the practice room.



12. Mark “Praedyth” Lewis was not happy with the situations either, he was just only interested in playing the game and competing in the OPL, which we supported when we left and we still support today. That does not retract from the fact that the rest of the players were veterans/highly skilled players and have different career goals to those of Praedyth.



13. TM did no such thing. The combination of not honoring the termination of the players puts this to rest instantly. In your own player agreements to Riot you’ve stated that you never want to hold players against their own will. Which is exactly what you’ve done here.



14. Also not true, the week 3 and 4 payments to players were late, as well as overdue invoices to players for invoices they sent through months ago and followed up multiple times with you. You also take a very comfortable time to respond to emails, and denied the arbitration suggested to us from Riot NA to state a few of the things. With regards to me, you never even responded to my last email after you terminated me which is a joke.



15. The invoice actually came after you ignored my 6000 word email for two weeks requesting for help within the house and that I could not and did not want to continue working overtime, so if things were going to stay the same and I would not be relieved of work outside of my agreement, things also needed to change. You also tried to say that because you never asked me to do any of the work, that you didn’t have to pay me. Whereas I can very easily prove that everything I did in the month of December was in the best interests of Tainted Minds and if I had not done it then the project would have ultimately failed.



So because of this we left the meeting discussing the overtime I worked in December with the agreement that I would be paid the settlement amount reached in that meeting. Here you can see their lawyer confirming it was IN ADDITION to the review of my agreement going forward: http://puu.sh/uVU2z/ce2dcee491.png You never paid me this! You also on top of that offered me another settlement offer when you terminated me, to which you NEVER RESPONDED TO MY EMAIL?? John also agreed to paying me for cooking the players meals going forward from Feb the 3rd, to which I’ve never been compensated for either http://puu.sh/uW2pW/2378f06eb6.png So that’s 3 counts where you’re still to meet to your own agreements and I am to be paid



As mentioned above, the settlement amount was separate to reviewing the agreement going forward. As you’ve so kindly confirmed yourself, you later then decided to begin throwing on extra conditions wherever you wanted to the previously agreed upon settlement that I would only receive the payment for the necessary overtime worked in December provided I did extra work or signed the new agreement.

You also have somehow decided that you won't even be working on fulfilling your contractual agreements with me at all going forward (you never provided me with a computer the entire time, and from what it looks like never intended to either). http://puu.sh/uVVvc/6441f9bd7c.png

It’s also a little bit rude to ask someone to move everything they own out of a house in 12 hours don’t you think?



Even in mediation you would not pay me for the previously agreed upon necessary overtime worked unless I’d signed a new contract. I did not refuse to accept a new contract, I simply stated that I was not comfortable going into new contract negotiations until the outstanding and and old issues were resolved and that it looked like you had no intention of paying my the December overtime so it looked like we were not going to be able to move forward from this. http://puu.sh/uVVbl/3719f52ebb.png



I mean, this looks like a termination to me.. http://puu.sh/uVVOG/47fe177dd0.png

I never DENIED the deed of settlement, you never RESPONDED to my last email? http://puu.sh/uVVTB/cb738438c2.png



So on top of doing my absolute best for the past 6 months, and ending up with a organization who continually miss the mark on things they’ve agreed upon, who only seem to spend their time signing new rosters and poaching other players while mismanaging their first team. In the face of losing everything I’d worked so hard for- through no fault of my own, yes relationships were strained. On top of that Nick Bobir has had a history of abusing me which lead me to singing my original agreement under duress.



I’ll also provide some insight to the day the relationship between Nick Bobir and myself deteriorated, this was the day I finally took the initiative to try to understand my contract and negotiate my contract because at this point I already knew I was entitled to the Player Manager and Player Handler fees provided by Riot which they were intending to withhold from me in the first place:



https://puu.sh/uW3Pk/ba7842ee3f.png

https://puu.sh/uW3QJ/dc77392db6.png

https://puu.sh/uW3RC/beaf662b57.png

https://puu.sh/uW3Sy/ca12f50468.png

https://puu.sh/uW3TU/6a224f8518.png

https://puu.sh/uW3Ve/a74101c9bd.png

https://puu.sh/uW3Xe/cc5ca167ad.png

https://puu.sh/uW3Yo/779422bb9c.png

https://puu.sh/uW3Z6/395654e639.png

https://puu.sh/uW40l/031461c0ef.png

https://puu.sh/uW41f/83120cf81e.png

https://puu.sh/uW422/55eaf2b778.png

https://puu.sh/uW42T/ac721ff286.png

https://puu.sh/uW43v/f25f67c631.png

https://puu.sh/uW44U/87520864f1.png



Please also keep in mind this guilt play about upper management not earning anything is highly irrelevant because I do not have revenue shares within the organisation.



Point 16 i have no words for because they have no right to be illegally restraining the trade of players who have legally terminated their contracts.



17. I hope they’ve finally started getting more than one scrim block a day now and actually cooks them some vegetables. If spirits were so high, why did Broler leave on the 22nd? https://twitter.com/BrolerOCE/status/844473077165506560, Pabu also left? I also heard that the week after the players left they flew up their new roster and didn’t even bother to change the sheets on the beds they were given to sleep in.



As far as I was aware the arbitrator that RiotNA suggested was just fine?



===



I wish it surprised me, but It doesn't surprise me that TM are trying to use me as their scapegoat for this, because the truth is I did all of the work and pushed them to meet deadlines. That and I’ve been told from other people that they’ve had this kind of behaviour before in business. But in the end they were upper management and responsible for the final call on everything. If they were doing their job, I would have never had to do so much work for them in the first place. But sorry this is just defamation of character. I truly hope something can be done about this so that nobody else has to go through what myself and the players have gone through. After TM unfairly terminated me and the players left the following week, we had no intention of bringing any of this to light and did our best to resolve this behind closed doors. It is because of Tainted Minds that we are at the point we are today.



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