During Doublelift’s stream on May 11, the President of TSM, Leena Xu was overheard stating, “That’s not up to me, like for example, no one wants to pick up Dardoch. That’s not my fault.” This comes only weeks after TSM officially traded for Doublelift from Team Liquid. Because of Leena’s personal relationship with the TSM ADC, many claimed that there was a conflict of interest. The LCS looked into this and stated that they found nothing of note. The short clip below shows that there may be some new evidence of the contrary.
While this was likely unintentional, many are already claiming that this is clear evidence that there is and probably has been a conflict of interest. This include major members of the League of Legends community and esports as a whole.
Well this pretty much removes all plausible deniability TSM had regarding DL not knowing/hearing more about situations within management due to living with the president.
— Christian Rivera (@IWDominate) May 11, 2020
Furthermore, DoubleLift has no reason to know about Dardoch’s situation beyond the fact that they will not be playing together on TSM.
This conflict of interest must end for the good of the LCS.
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) May 11, 2020
I'm not Dardoch's agent or rep, but if I was I'd be fucking livid.
Think of the damage this does to any negotiations you'd be having with another team. Most teams have a general idea where demand for other players is, but to have it outright confirmed by your former boss (1/2) https://t.co/dVRFxO96hN
— Barry Lee (이권문) 🎴 (@Eidelweiss) May 11, 2020
With this knowledge, it definitely puts Dardoch in a terrible situation as well as raises some major questions about Dardoch’s position with the team. Is he still with TSM? Are they looking to move him? So far there was speculation that TSM might be looking for a new jungler but nothing confirmed. While this does not confirm anything about whether Dardoch is getting traded, it does make it feel like they have either been trying or are currently trying to move him.
It seems likely that there will be some form of punishment either from the TSM or the LCS. There is also the NALCS Players Association which has three current TSM players in Bjergsen, Biofrost and Doublelift on the leadership team. Will they get involved and if they do, are they able to stay objective in their ruling? This situation is not one that will just blow over. There will probably be some major consequences and Leena will most likely have take the brunt of it.
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