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IronWar owners alleged of owing upwards of $30,000 in prize money to teams

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简介An unresponsive tournament organizer has left teams missing prize money after they took part in two ...

An unresponsive tournament organizer has left teams missing prize money after they took part in two separate tournaments.

UPDATE:A representative from NewBelarus has told HLTV.org that the prize money they earned for their 5th-8th placement ($1,250) in IronWar Grand Prix was not paid out, after all.

The owners of the "IronWar" series of tournaments, which includes three events — IronWar, IronWar Grand Prix, and IronWar Series #1 — allegedly owe over $30,000 of prize money to teams that took part in the latter two events, with SKADE making a public statement about the nonpayment via their website on Friday.

The matter was first brought to light in October by former Natus Vincere member Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin, who took part in IronWar Grand Prix with BEZ ZP. The team ended their tournament run in 3-4th place and should have earned $2,500 as their reward; however, over three months after the tournament first took place, they are still owed their due, according to the Russian veteran.

SHiPZ is among the players who have stated they have yet to be paid by IronWar

Various teams and players, including Nemiga, and AGO, added in ensuing responses to both of the above statements that they also have yet to receive payments for their placements. Other teams contacted privately by HLTV have stated that they have not been paid the prize pool for IronWar Series #1, either, nor have they received any response or communication from the organizers of the event for weeks.

In an open letter from tournament organizer META Belarus, who had been hired by IronWar to help operate the first two tournaments, it was stated that the team behind IronWar consists of a group of private individuals — Artem Kozyr, Kiryl Neverov, and Leonid Rakuts.

META Belarus explains in the letter that they were approached by this group of individuals to organize the first of the three IronWar tournaments. As none of the individuals behind the IronWar company had esports credentials, META Belarus required payment of the prize money upfront to a private account of their own as a condition to undertake the project, as well as a guarantee of no interference in the tournament itself.

As such, the first event played out with META Belarus as the organizing party, and competing teams were paid through them following its conclusion. Heading into the second tournament, IronWar Grand Prix, however, META Belarus say they were faced with an issue in that the three individuals mentioned above had registered a public association, E-sports gaming PA.

"Since they already have a legal entity (a public association) for the further history and documentary evidence that they were the organizers and actors on the esports market, they needed to independently organize interactions with the teams and pay the prize money themselves," META Belarus state in their letter.

"We agreed that communication with the teams and the payment of the prize fund remain on the side of E-sports gaming PA, and META-ESPORTS only provides tournament and broadcasting services."

However, the majority of that prize money has yet to be paid by Kozyr, Neverov, Rakuts, or the entity E-sports gaming PA. According to an article released in October by Belarussian outlet Cyber Pressball, only NewBelarus received payment out of the teams they reached out to, while INDE IRAE, ONYX, and Trasko all stated that they had not been paid. The same outlet cites a statement from Kozyr:

"Now we will prepare responses to organizations. It is not in our interest not to pay the prize money. It's just that now there are difficulties with the accounts, they have been frozen. For these reasons, we cannot make payments. I can give you a more detailed answer a little later. After talking with the organizations."

Multiple teams HLTV has reached out to have not received any update regarding payments, including AGO and SKADE, who placed first and second in the IronWar Grand Prix tournament and are owed a total of $20,000 for their achievements.

Further concerns also arose for META Belarus when, just one day prior to the start of IronWar Grand Prix, they received a request from E-sports gaming PA for a zero delay stream, as well as administrative access to tournament lobbies.

"The day before the start of the IronWar Grand Prix tournament, E-sports gaming PA put forward a requirement to provide a separate stream (without delay) to a third-party resource, motivating it with the partner's requirement," META Belarus say in their open letter.

"E-sports gaming PA as well requested admin access to each game tournament lobby. This request seemed suspicious and raised concerns about the E-sports gaming PA failure to comply with the agreements to prevent manipulation of the game process. We had no reason to stop the tournament, as the contract was signed and an advance payment was made to us."

Since then, E-sports gaming PA have organized another event, IronWar Series #1, with a different tournament operator handling tournament services. Four teams were meant to be awarded a total of $20,000 in prize money following the conclusion of the event in early November, including Nexus and NASR, whose Head of FPS Games and CS:GO coach, Aws "⁠CHAOS⁠" Bani Baker, told HLTV.org that the organizers have ceased contact with him two weeks ago after he continued to enquire about the payment of prize money.

HLTV has attempted to contact Kozyr and E-sports gaming PA but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Contact emails provided for Kozyr and IronWar also failed to deliver.