Brack refutes Toronto Ultra’s response to CDL player treatment concerns
Toronto Ultra/CDLCall of Duty pro player Brack has challenged his former CDL team, Toronto Ultra’s response to the concerns that were raised in the CoD community about their treatment of their contracted player.
Call of Duty’s rostermania has been even more interesting this usual. The inaugural CDL season wrapped up with Dallas Empire winning the World Championships, before releasing veteran Clayster.
Similar roster moves have been seen at a host of organizations, including the Ultra who, after releasing six of their ten contracted players, came under fire from Crimsix on social media.
He accused the organization of “forcing their full roster of 10 to stay in Toronto in the middle of a pandemic”, as well as “threatening to not pay non-starters if they went home.”
3. There’s rumors that these clowns are wanting a 50/50 prize winnings split from their team next year WHILE underpaying them. If the prize split goes up, so must the salary. This is the exact opposite of what they’re doing. One of the most anti-player organizations I’ve seen.
— Empire C6 (@Crimsix) September 25, 2020
He summarized them as “one of the most anti-player organizations” he’s seen in his time in competitive esports. Understandably, public opinion swung against the Canadian organization, but they have now responded.
In the first of two official updates, Paulo Senra, vice-president of the OverActive Media Group, defended the organization’s actions and said that all decisions were made in the best interest of players.
He also said that compensation was given to all players who needed it, and finished: “All of our decisions were and will continue to be made with the health and safety of our player and our staff at its core.”
The first statement, provided to the Canadian Esports Podcast, can be seen below:
Following the first statement, the Ultra provided another official response, focusing on Brack, one of the players at the center of the allegations.
Ultra claim that they continued to pay him in full when he asked to travel home, as well as providing “a very generous time period in which to produce sufficient medical documentation substantiating his illness to help us understand when he might return.”
They say that they then learned “he had cleaned out his belongings from his residence in advance of leaving Toronto for the family emergency, indicating to us that he never intended to return to his work duties in the first place.”
The truth about Brack
Read: https://t.co/dQIGhmrJ3s
— Toronto Ultra (@TorontoUltra) September 27, 2020
The statement finishes: “With an unwillingness to cooperate and a significant amount of compassionate leave paid, we could not reasonably keep paying Brack’s salary… We believe our conduct has been entirely reasonable – even characterized as generous towards Brack – and we will stand by our conduct and our people.”
Toronto Ultra’s Full statement:
Over the past few days Toronto Ultra’s treatment of its players has been called into question and some allegations have been made that simply do not align with the facts known to us. We are posting this statement to provide our perspective on these false and harmful allegations. We owe this to our players, our fans, our tireless staff and all those who care about Toronto Ultra.
Brack came to us asking to return home to be with his family at a difficult time. We of course alleviated him from team obligations to go home on compassionate leave. We want to be very clear that we continued to pay Brack his full salary as a compassionate leave, despite the fact that we had no contractual or legal obligation to do so, so that he could be with his loved ones without financial pressure to return to his job.
Some days later he came to us to say he was now ill and indicating that he could not return to Toronto. We continued to pay him. Finally, we provided him with a very generous time period in which to produce sufficient medical documentation substantiating his illness to help us understand when he might return.
We subsequently learned that he had cleaned out his belongings from his residence in advance of leaving Toronto for the family emergency, indicating to us that he never intended to return to his work duties in the first place.
With an unwillingness to cooperate and a significant amount of compassionate leave paid, we could not reasonably keep paying Brack’s salary.
We are a proud organization with great people who truly care about our work and each other. This has been a tough year on everyone. But at some point an organization has to stand up for itself and protect its people and its reputation. We could not let these false statements about Toronto Ultra’s conduct continue unanswered. We believe our conduct has been entirely reasonable – even characterized as generous towards Brack – and we will stand by our conduct and our people.
Update – 3:30 PM ET
Brack responds to Ultra’s statement
Shortly after the Toronto Ultra issued the above statement, Brack released his own response, refuting a lot of what the organization said in their post.
According to Brack, he did provide the team with the necessary medical documentation from his doctor, even including an image of the note that advises him not to travel back to Toronto.
The Ultra have yet to issue any further statements following Brack’s tweet. We will continue to update you on this situation as it develops.