Five CSGO players banned by ESEA amid ESIC match-fixing investigation

The ESEA has confirmed that five Counter-Strike professionals, previously players for Team Rebirth and Russian Canadians, have been banned from competing in the esport while an official investigation into match-fixing proceeds.

The announcement was made off the back of leaked audio, which shows three members of the Team Rebirth roster discussing how they could subvert the outcomes of two of their ESEA matches.

The audio, from October 2020, relates to matches that were played against Incognito and Russian Canadians. It also suggests that two players on the Russian Canadians roster were willing to participate in the match-fixing scheme.

The statement, made by ESEA on April 3, explains that the three Team Rebirth players are suspended, as are the two members of Russian Canadians who were alleged to be participating as well.

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“As part of the ongoing ESIC investigation, we are suspending the players from Team Rebirth from all competitions until the investigation is concluded,” ESEA said. “We continue to support ESIC and will always enforce actions against violations of competitive integrity.”

As the ESEA stated in a follow-up tweet, the players suspended (and their current teams) are:

• Sebastian “retchy” Tropiano (ChocoCheck)
• Kevin “4pack” Przypasniak (Inactive)
• Carson “nosraC” O’Reilly (ChocoCheck)
• Alex “vek” Voynov (OCG)
• David “J0LZ” Jolin (OCG)

ESIC’s Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith has confirmed that the FBI are working with the organization to investigate CS:GO match-fixing and its potential links to “outside betting syndicates”.

Dexerto will be publishing a much more in-depth report into the alleged match-fixing in the coming weeks.