Photo by: Thisisgame.com
As of today, January 18th, Lee Seok "aLive" Han is listed in the Fnatic roster. However, as disputable circumstances surround the case, team manager Elroy Pinto comes out with a statement regarding the course of the events.
The transfer of aLive was made more complicated as negotiations about a possible Fnatic-TSL cooperation were running at that moment. Pinto explains in his statement that Fnatic approached TSL with an offer of their players staying and training at the Korean house with Fnatic covering TSL's expenses. Although they were also approached by other Korean teams with proposals of partnership, Fnatic decided not to make that step due to its high cost. Thus, a deal between TSL and Fnatic was never struck.
Transitioning to aLive's case in particular, Pinto refutes the accusations that Fnatic stole the Korean terran from TSL and in fact this departure was set in motion by aLive himself who, according to Fnatic's statement, had personal issues with TSL coach Jae Woon Lee.
Elroy Pinto, Fnatic manager Wrote:
aLive is a fantastic player and we admire his skill, aLive did chat to our translator - Brian Hyun Choi , who is his friend, never with a formal offer it was a casual conversation between two friends. It is important to note that we have not signed any contract with aLive as we know he has a contract with TSL. We are in fact very sad that things had to take a public recourse as communication between TSL and Fnatic had never broken down. It seems Mr Lee wants to close the door.
Furthermore aLive never decided to leave TSL for Fnatic he left the team house out of his own personal reasons with Coach Lee and those are not related to us, neither do we have any interest in knowing the reasons.
aLive is a fantastic player and we admire his skill, aLive did chat to our translator - Brian Hyun Choi , who is his friend, never with a formal offer it was a casual conversation between two friends. It is important to note that we have not signed any contract with aLive as we know he has a contract with TSL. We are in fact very sad that things had to take a public recourse as communication between TSL and Fnatic had never broken down. It seems Mr Lee wants to close the door.
Furthermore aLive never decided to leave TSL for Fnatic he left the team house out of his own personal reasons with Coach Lee and those are not related to us, neither do we have any interest in knowing the reasons.
However, a TL.net translation of Gamechosun.co.kr article reveals a different side of the story as coach Lee states that Fnatic have approached aLive by bypassing him and not "going through the proper channels". Lee addressed similar accusation after the NASL 1 finals when Evil Geniuses acquired Puma.
Coach Lee Wrote:
It seems he talked about transferring teams with Fnatic's translator. Fnatic is denying responsibility by saying it's something the translator did on his [or her] own, but that's nonsense. I'm angry that they didn't approach me officially, and went to the player directly.
It seems he talked about transferring teams with Fnatic's translator. Fnatic is denying responsibility by saying it's something the translator did on his [or her] own, but that's nonsense. I'm angry that they didn't approach me officially, and went to the player directly.
Jae Woon Lee also mentions the tentative TSL-Fnatic cooperation, saying that it was nearly complete and all that remained was for it to be announced officially when suddenly Fnatic cut off the negotiations and recruited aLive. According to the same source, coach Lee is considering taking legal actions towards the terran player since he had breached his contract with the Korean team.
We will keep you updated as the situation unfolds.
Links
Fnatic.com - Fnatic statement
TeamLiquid.net - Source
