Riot Games has banned pro organization Team Immunity from participating in any League of Legends competition for two years because it didn't pay its players in due time.
Team Immunity has been participating in Oceanic League of Legends competitions since 2012, and ranked first in the Season 3 Oceanic Championship of 2013. The pro team has had a constant presence and participated in many competitions, but it will not be able to join any League of Legends tournament for the next couple years.
Riot ruled that Team Immunity failed to pay its players the minimum match payments and issued the two-year ban as a penalty, effective immediately. The ban affects Team Immunity and its owners, but not the players who were part of the team. This means that players will still be able to participate in League of Legends competitions, just not with Team Immunity.
"Despite warnings, Team Immunity failed to pay their players within a set time of receiving payment from Riot in consecutive splits," explains the ruling.
"We will therefore not be allowing the owners or the organisation of Team Immunity to compete in the OPL or any official League of Legends tournament for 2 years. We will ensure that all players receive the match payments owed to them, and will allow those players to continue playing in OPL as/with a new organisation."
Daniel Ringland, who is in charge of eSports and competitive at Riot Games Oceania, referred only to the 2015 LoL season. This suggests that Team Immunity has paid its LoL team in previous years, just not this year.
The Oceanic Pro League (OPL) further highlights that professional players in Oceania invest time and effort to play for their teams and face great pressure during the tournaments, and they should get the match payments they deserve. Repeatedly withholding or delaying payments to players is unacceptable, added Ringland.
While Team Immunity joined the League of Legends scene in 2012, it has been a notable presence in Australian eSports since 2003. Team Immunity also has squads in Dota 2, Counter-Strike: GO and others. This ruling will likely have quite an impact, but it seems like Team Immunity plans to convince Riot to lift the ban.
"We are currently in discussions with Riot management as we believe a mistake has been made. We will issue a further statement in due course," Team Immunity wrote on its Twitter account.
Judging by the comments under the tweet, however, it seems that Team Immunity managed to screw over quite a lot of people.
