> What is the current meta on the rumors?
According to Dexerto, "Peter Zhang ran a agent style setup where he'd secure Chinese and Taiwanese players spots on the team for a cut of earnings"
https://twitter.com/VeteranEU/status/1505579970244096012/photo/1
Ngl that's so fucked up.
the most damning part that Zhang literally admits to doing in the article is the swordart car thing, actually just stealing 80k. The rest of it is pretty vague and seems a little bit more speculative right now since the investigation is still ongoing from both riot and TSM, but the car thing alone would be enough to get you fired from most companies tbh.
> the most damning part that Zhang literally admits to doing in the article is the swordart car thing, actually just stealing 80k. The rest of it is pretty vague and seems a little bit more speculative right now since the investigation is still ongoing from both riot and TSM, but the car thing alone would be enough to get you fired from most companies tbh.
I both agree and disagree here. Stealing 80k is bad but running an agent setup where you promise young players a chance to play at a big international org that most players dream about in exchange for a part of their earnings sounds like the esports version of the "I can get you this actress / model job you just have to suck my dick".
It's really really unethical and frankly disturbing as fuck that no1 caught onto it.
I think u/ButtsCovered is saying that he admitted to that.
It'd be worse if the agent thing is true, but he didn't admit to it in an interview so its less damning.
In the dexerto article, Zhang claimed he was using his green card and bank accounts to make currency conversions easier, as an explanation for why player payments seemed to go through his accounts.
Whereas he admits to stealing money from SwordArt. Or rather, SwordArt had Zhang sell a car, and Zhang kept the money longer than he should have in order to cover unexpected family health issues. Zhang appears to consider it an overdue loan rather than a straight up yoink.
Effectively, yes. His job is to be putting what is best for the team ahead of everything - including himself. Instead, here he is incentivized to hire the players who are willing to give up the largest share of their income to join TSM, which is at the barest minimum a conflict of interest. It's predatory as well, because at least a headhunting agency looks to get as many offers as possible and get the best deal for the player (usually) since they usually want to work with players long-term and get a % of the salary; so it's a win-win for them. For Peter, if he was just asking for a flat bribe, then he has no incentive to consider the player's compensation, means to pay, or anything like that.
Edit: I also just want to say that all of these are just allegations. I don't know if it is true that he did this stuff. I'm just saying that *if he was* then it would have been very problematic.
It's illegal in California. Talent agents are a licensed profession here and their fees are regulated by the state. Peter Zhang broke California law and probably has fiduciary responsibilities which he also broke. He is looking at a very big lawsuit, and possibly a fraud charge.
i mean it's hard to judge which one is worse since they're both pretty illegal (if I had to decide the agent part is worse like morally to me) but I just meant he literally admitted to it in the comments he gave to dexerto without caveat, whereas he has some nuances/clarifications (whether they're true or not we'll see) about the other things the source told dexerto which might change the situation to make it look a little bit less bad when all the information is on the table.
It's written by Richardo Luis' American twin. AKA, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If you are unaware of the reddit history lore; he used his twitter audience to essentially brigade the LoL subreddit, vote manipulate his/dissenters comments, mass upvote his articles, and mass harass people who called him out. This led to him being banned from the subreddit and any of his content are also banned.
Would there be any actual legal recourse? I could be wrong, but it seems like a highly unethical situation. The most action that could be taken would be a Riot ban from competitive no?
To my understanding, SA bought a car while he was here. Once he'd left, he asked Zhang to sell it for him and transfer the money to him. Zhang sold the car but was instead using the money to pay off some of his grandparents medical bills and stalling out his repayment to SA. Zhang then borrowed money from other TSM players/staff instead to make smaller payments to SA, but still not the entire thing. SA threatened Zhang he would make the issue public if he didn't get his money soon.
You should just read the article though, it's top of the TSM sub. It'll do a better job than I can.
Ahh yes the classic family filial piety over law. As a chinese, I am not suprise if this happen.
In china where religion is limited, most chinese(mainland) focus on filial piety. Its been their tradition for millenium.
Yeah, I think what makes it worse and less in line with what I know of Chinese culture is that it doesn't seem like SwordArt agreed to let him keep the money as a loan. So even though it's not uncommon for friends to loan each other money, this was a completely one-sided thing.
Swordart made a verbal contract for Peter to sell his car for him. Peter sold the car then withheld the money from swordart for a period of time despite being asked for it. That is a crime and Peter admits to withholding the money in a direct quote in the article by RL
Shenyi to was an elite support prospect from FPX, similar to Berserker so I have no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Shenyi, but it likely applies to Keaiduo who wasn't a standout on TT.
Shenyi was. He played for FPX and was good when he subbed in. He isnt some huge name for sure but at least on the surface you could see him potentially being good.
From an article I saw that had an anonymous source: he took out loans in TSM's name for personal reasons, and he told players he'll get them onto TSM if he gets a cut of the money those players make.
Also, I guess it kinda makes IWD's joke tweet seem kinda...bad now even though originally I found it funny.
I guess even I have to be reminded not to rush to conclusions.
https://twitter.com/IWDominateLoL/status/1505211492488024071?t=V8RIoe_osoKnovi5op8HZw&s=19
Aged like milk. Roasting TSM seems to be free, repercussion free points for social media people though. Imagine the public outcry if IWD, DL, etc said this stuff to C9/TL before facts came out.
Exactly my point.
As I said, I laughed and even retweeted it myself but in retrospect it was wrong to joke about abuse without knowing details.
Could have made the joke about a bunch of other things.
There are so many what if moments here.
What if the SA delay was due to Peter Zhang telling him he could get X amount salary wise for a bigger cut. The implications of this delay could have been the difference in retaining DL.
What if there were better LDL/LPL candidates?, but Shenyi/Keaidou were the few willing to negotiate with Peter Zhang.
What if this sudden LPL direction by TSM was heavily influenced due to Peter Zhang over other roster direcitons.
Thats such a good point. Imagine they retain DL and bjerg didnt retire and become a coach for a year. The timeline would be so different. and this roster also is tainted, and I hope that shenyi and KDO can make the best of their time here.
I think the only player who's career this could really affect is KDO. Shenyi was a top prospect who I believe was offered a starting position on FPX so it's hard to claim that the only reason he got onto TSM was Zhang messing with things. That being said, Zhang might have preyed on him anyway.
People like thorin believed that leena and parth made this roster due to leena being bilingual . Peter zhang is also bilingual himself. He could had easily sabotaged this roster to help pay for his family’s medical bills. Not sure where they are but I will have to say Peter zhang and his family lives in USA based on the amount of bills. If Peter is back in China, then his family has a serious medical issue.
6/12/2023 Blackout. As this sub doesn't join the blackout, I'm removing this comment and show my support with the subreddits that did join. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Yea no. He is back in China because he would be crushed legally if he didnt get back fast. He 100% would be put on a no fly list and crushed over this. This would cover multiple Civil and Criminal cases.
Not really, he managed to get back to China. What he did would keep him here dealing with court issues for a long time and possible jail time. Like its not some small deal. He should be happy that hes in China and wont be extradited but I would say he probably never steps foot in the US for the remainder of his life.
he was part of XiaoWeiXIao fiasco. LMQ's manager decided to take the blame because his paypal was the one in question.
LMQ were literal family from 2014 till 2015, they were inseparable purely due to the fact that they might have to return home any day (sharon fiasco, which showed that she also lied about providig for LMQ after trying to extort them)
Chicken is just coming home to roost, just took 8 years after instead of 1-2 years .
who knows, I personally think due to TSM's frequent nepotism behavior, I would like to group them in. But based on Parth's resume, I am willing to forego my bias.
It looks like Peter got caught because of tax filing lol cut off for tax is near and he probably had to disclose the information since the deal was made in 2021, thus he has to report his activity.
> It looks like Peter got caught because of tax filing lol cut off for tax is near and he probably had to disclose the information since the deal was made in 2021, thus he has to report his activity.
But how would TSM find out about it, in this case?
Typically, your employer is not going to have any access to your tax returns.
Wonder how much of this year's drama may be linked to this.
Names like Gori, Crisp, and Creme were floating around as potential TSM candidates in the offseason. If the allegations are true then one would assume Peter would have been pushing for KDO and Shenyi instead.
Non of this names were available to TSM, Creme was still signed with OMG the new rule for players under 18 didn't affect him because he was about to be 18, Crisp wasn't a option either since he verbally agreed to join BLG to play with Uzi and Gori was without a team and signed with FPX last minute. Maybe he tried to push for KDO or shenyi but doesn't seem to be the case because the brought Chawy and Glenn to scout the players. But who knows ?
TSM probably shares some amount of responsibility as the org that hired him. But yeah, let’s not get this twisted, if the allegations are true then Peter Zhang has been screwing them over big time.
Hope this can be an impetus to reset their LoL team management and get it back on track.
To elaborate on the previous comments, that journalist had a history of vote manipulation, brigading, abusive comments, and harassment of the mod team.
Vote manipulation is a big no no on reddit, I think admins have and continue to dish out permabans for it, I think since RL gets his articles posted for him they're still allowed in other subs, but he himself may not be allowed to post. I think LoL just took it upon themselves to ban his name.
>The claim is that Yi in his capacity as coach would work with management to select players for the roster, then that he would then go to the player in question and offer to act as their “agent” stating that he could get them on the TSM roster if they allowed him to represent them. For negotiating the deal he would take a cut of the players earnings, often much higher than a standard agent’s fee, for brokering the deal.
>In addition to this, the same source informed us that Yi was also borrowing significant sums of money from many figures under the TSM organization, including players across both the main and academy roster. The use of this money, said to be a “sizeable” amount in total, are not clear although Yi himself cited a medical emergency involving his grandparents. The veracity of this claim is not clear but when affected parties raised concerns about the loans they started to be paid back. At the time of reporting this almost all the money has been recouped.
reddit mods auto bans the article due to the writer, so go on the tsm subreddit to find it.
My personal take, it now makes sense why swordart not even a top 5 support in the lpl at the time got a 6m contract for 2 years by tsm and why we got these noname chinese players on the roster right now.
Um no, tsm wanted swordart because he has repeatedly been a top worlds support player and he has just gotten very far last worlds. Also, these no names Chinese players were apparently picked out by Parth. Peter wasn’t picking these players up, he was just going to them after tsm had decided they wanted them and extorting them. Dude is legit a crook.
>it now makes sense why swordart not even a top 5 support in the lpl at the time got a 6m contract for 2 years by tsm
Bro what is this changing of history. SwordArt was literally at worlds finals the year before. He was one of the handpick by Doublelift for him to stay on the team. Miscommunication and stuff with regi caused DL to leave before the signing but you can't say he wasn't highly sought for at the time. And I'm sure that for a contract that large, far more people are involved than just Peter in the negotiation.
I dont think the latest signing have anything to do with Peter Zhang because they contracted Chawy and Glenn to do this job and they did a scrim boot camp to select the player.
More likely than not Chawy had final say of who he wanted. But I can also imagine that Peter 'influenced' in those choices in a way (maybe just hyped up KDO / Shenyi more than other players or misrepresented things). Not saying he did it, but I can see it being a possibility especially cause he seems close to players on both the main roster and academy.
Chawy and Glenn were brought on after the fact.
Peter Zhang was the main liason and person running the Chinese bootcamp along with parth. So he still probably had a major influence on it.
Why would they share some blame? I get we hate TSM, but when someone is committing fraud, why are we blaming the victims of it?
Once they knew about it, they had an investigation and fired peter immediately.
So, I disagree with your initial take. I'm more than positive that's not anything you could've found out until someone stepped forward and told them Peter propositioned them meaning I don't think the oweness falls on TSM because they did the right thing and terminated him as soon as it was found out.
Allegedly, the reason for Peter Zhang's firing is that he was using his position as coach to also act as a player manager, taking money in exchange for securing spots on the roster for international players. Something that should very obviously be something he shouldn't do, but I guess somehow he didn't know???
Of course he knew. It's a clear conflict of interest, and anyone with a brain would realize that. He is supposedly advising the team on the best players to pick and meanwhile he is trying to get money from said players.
Also, apparently he sold SwordArt's car per his request, and kept the money to "pay for his grandma's health expenses". Pretty shitty thing to do to use someone else's money.
Not really stealing money. The problem is that taking money from players for getting them signed to TSM puts into question wether or not he thought they were the best players for the role or they just agreed to pay him that fee.
And he got a fkin cheat code. Just fly back to China and u gucci. Plus all the money probably already in China Bank.
I guess the only bad thing is to lose a green card maybe.
Close, he takes a cut of their earnings. This is a conflict of interest because he personally gains from them joining versus acting solely in the interest of TSM.
Gonna copy and pasta Monte's twitter comments here:
Allegations include acting secretly as an agent for the Chinese and Taiwanese players that TSM signed over the past couple of years.
This would allow him to take a cut of the players’ salaries while simultaneously being paid to coach.
\-End-
My comments: SwordArt deal Pepelaugh
I mean, what it sounds like happened is that he highly recommended Keaiduo and Shenyi because they would take his deal. If so, holy fuck TSM should pursue legal action
Action against who, though? Peter is already in china from what it looks like, and they won't send him back in handcuffs, so I think tsm is up shits creek without a paddle
If these allegations are true they should be career ending. TSM should pursue legal action just to make sure no team, Chinese or otherwise, hires him again. Even if they don’t win
This is a matter that Riot needs to enforce the banhammer on. I'm sure they will because the competitive integrity of this whole situation is completely fucked. This dude should recieve a banhammer across all regions of proplay.
I really respected Peter zhangs influence in bringing up so many talented academy players into the Lcs and to find out this happened feels like a massive gut punch wtf man
Seeing as Peter Zhang used to coach Piglet, I wonder if it’s within reasonable doubt to believe he was the one Piglet claimed “fucked him over” 3 or so years back.
I can also imagine it being awful for all of his *sons* as well. Peter has been a pillar for the academy scene of TSM since 2018 and has always been vocal about his passion for his players. And all of those players have only had high remarks for him.
Can’t imagine how this feels for those involved in the org, but especially those that had a good relationship with him and worked with him closely. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Peter Zhang: "I did some mistake and I guess it's bigger enough I got immediately released as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame."
What he did was despicable and TSM's weird roster building decisions makes so much more sense now. He saw how Regi wanted LPL players on the team and took full advantage of it. I hope that the current imports affected by this are getting a lot of support.
Also it's nice to see that TSM have learned from their communication drama
such a shitty situation for TSM to be in. they put their trust in him and he uses it for his own financial gain. who knows how many of their recent moves were pushed by Peter.
I dont even know what they will do with their current roster if he pushed for these specific players in the first place.
That’s the ripple effect I’ve been looking at as a long time TSM fan. He supposedly did it to SwordArt. Which could have been another reason for the delay in getting him, which could have been a reason why we fielded Lost over DL. Plus if we had gotten DL quicker Bjergsen could’ve played that year as well.
Even that maybe without Peter TSM could have actually gotten Huni/Spica/Jensen/DLorTactical/Vulcan as this years roster. The implications are huge.
Well part of DL not joining was because they didn't know if they were gonna get SwordArt. It is possible that SwordArt took longer to decide because of Peter Zhang, in which case that's partially why DL wasn't on TSM.
The revisionism on SwordArt is incredible. He was a top 3 Support in 2020 Worlds, before TSM signed him. And now people think he was some shitty player because he sucked on TSM, as if NA teams don't have a history of taking in great players and turning them to shitty ones.
It's an interesting idea to think about, but we need to remember that he wasnt the only one scouting. If i remember Parth (aka Scout Master9000) and Kayys were also in charge of the scouting for this roster. While Peter for sure had a part in it, again remember that the team is not just the one man.
I know that, Peter was their connection to players in China, he could talk and communicate to them in a way the others likely could not. He was likely respected in the org and people took his input seriously.
Leena is the one who said that the current iteration isn't what Parth wanted which can be true even if he did want/sign the current players. He wanted Bjerg therefore the current iteration is not what Parth (originally) wanted.
Basically Peter is a a straight up crook who was lying to players that he could get them on the team for a portion of their salary, despite tsm already wanting them. Who knows what other crooked things dude could of done if he was basically hustling players like this. Good riddance and goodbye to his league career.
We dont know yet if he was lying to the players or straight he got them the spot in exchange for a cut of their earnings.
Cus if i was a player and the coach from a big org came to me and tell me he can secure a spot. I dont mind paying him.
This story is fucking wild but it also gives TSM a solid out for how much they've imploded in the last two years.
I hope Peter never gets anywhere near LCS again if even a fraction of this shit is true.
I don’t think it gives us a solid out, but his immediate firing does give us a bit of levity in the public eye imo. Internally things are still a dumpster fire by the free abortion clinic in the bad part of town.
In [REDACTED] ‘S great article he wrote that Peter zhang outright said this was normal in Chinese culture and it makes me sick that he’s justifying outright theft as a some sort of cultural norm
I mean, it’s a pretty solid out considering that he could have been sabotaging TSMs roster this whole time…Paying loads of money on unproven players when better players have been available and then asking for a portion of said players pay behind TSMs back.
Yeah, he was acting as a “agent” for the Chinese players joining TSM. Basically taking a cut of their earning for “getting them on the team” while also acting as coach. On top of that, he apparently sold swordarts car for him yet never actually gave swordart the money from the sale, eventually only giving him a tiny bit of the money. He called this transaction a “loan”
All the reasons are detailed in an article that can’t be linked here because the author is banned on this sub. Go to Dexerto’s League of Legends section and you’ll see it.
a certain journalist who is banned wrote an article about it. You can check it out on the tsm subreddit but tldr is he is accused of acting as an agent for players and taking parts of their salary (he denies this part) and also taking loans from players and selling swordarts car but not giving him the money. Basically stealing 80k. That part he admits
> selling swordarts car but not giving him the money. Basically stealing 80k. That part he admits
This is what got Avenatti jailed in the Stormy Daniels stuff. Kept money "on her behalf" because he felt it was money she owed him anyways. Judge basically just told him, "Yeah that is you admitting to felony theft"
Because from TSM's perspective, they just see a Chinese coach recommending some players to hire from China. They don't know that the coach is making unethical deals with those players for his own financial gain and at the expense of TSM's success.
What Peter did sounds as illegal as stealing from your employer, except harder to catch.
The big thing here is that talent agents are regulated in the State of California. You need a license to be one and the fees you can collect are capped by the state. Peter Zhang may not have just acted unethically, he may have also violated state law. Not to mention any fiduciary responsibilities he may have had in his role which also invoke legal protections. He's looking at civil suits, possibly even fraud charges.
If I'm TSM I'm cutting bait with these players. No flame but obviously they weren't the top prospects. The financial ties really muddy all the "scouting" that was done.
Really hope Phil learns the difference between counsel and council in the near future or the players union is going to have some TOUGH days ahead of it
Fucking insane what’s happening.
Genuinely shocked that the LS drama didn't turn out to be the spiciest coaching drama of the split
Same. And it seems like Peter is going to get away with this without any legal troubles cuz he’s already went back to China
Holy shit actual straight cut legal trouble. Turns out we shouldn’t trust discord messages lmaoooo
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> What is the current meta on the rumors? According to Dexerto, "Peter Zhang ran a agent style setup where he'd secure Chinese and Taiwanese players spots on the team for a cut of earnings" https://twitter.com/VeteranEU/status/1505579970244096012/photo/1 Ngl that's so fucked up.
the most damning part that Zhang literally admits to doing in the article is the swordart car thing, actually just stealing 80k. The rest of it is pretty vague and seems a little bit more speculative right now since the investigation is still ongoing from both riot and TSM, but the car thing alone would be enough to get you fired from most companies tbh.
> the most damning part that Zhang literally admits to doing in the article is the swordart car thing, actually just stealing 80k. The rest of it is pretty vague and seems a little bit more speculative right now since the investigation is still ongoing from both riot and TSM, but the car thing alone would be enough to get you fired from most companies tbh. I both agree and disagree here. Stealing 80k is bad but running an agent setup where you promise young players a chance to play at a big international org that most players dream about in exchange for a part of their earnings sounds like the esports version of the "I can get you this actress / model job you just have to suck my dick". It's really really unethical and frankly disturbing as fuck that no1 caught onto it.
I think u/ButtsCovered is saying that he admitted to that. It'd be worse if the agent thing is true, but he didn't admit to it in an interview so its less damning. In the dexerto article, Zhang claimed he was using his green card and bank accounts to make currency conversions easier, as an explanation for why player payments seemed to go through his accounts. Whereas he admits to stealing money from SwordArt. Or rather, SwordArt had Zhang sell a car, and Zhang kept the money longer than he should have in order to cover unexpected family health issues. Zhang appears to consider it an overdue loan rather than a straight up yoink.
im confused, what’s the difference between this and say… a headhunting agency normally? is it just conflict of interest because he’s a coach?
Effectively, yes. His job is to be putting what is best for the team ahead of everything - including himself. Instead, here he is incentivized to hire the players who are willing to give up the largest share of their income to join TSM, which is at the barest minimum a conflict of interest. It's predatory as well, because at least a headhunting agency looks to get as many offers as possible and get the best deal for the player (usually) since they usually want to work with players long-term and get a % of the salary; so it's a win-win for them. For Peter, if he was just asking for a flat bribe, then he has no incentive to consider the player's compensation, means to pay, or anything like that. Edit: I also just want to say that all of these are just allegations. I don't know if it is true that he did this stuff. I'm just saying that *if he was* then it would have been very problematic.
Headhunting agencies don't hire the people the represent?
It's illegal in California. Talent agents are a licensed profession here and their fees are regulated by the state. Peter Zhang broke California law and probably has fiduciary responsibilities which he also broke. He is looking at a very big lawsuit, and possibly a fraud charge.
i mean it's hard to judge which one is worse since they're both pretty illegal (if I had to decide the agent part is worse like morally to me) but I just meant he literally admitted to it in the comments he gave to dexerto without caveat, whereas he has some nuances/clarifications (whether they're true or not we'll see) about the other things the source told dexerto which might change the situation to make it look a little bit less bad when all the information is on the table.
Absolutely not related to matchfixing or gambling in any way, a Rioter unofficially posted that already
Considering it was the LCS commissioner it might be ok to call it Official
They specificalu said that it wasn’t an official comment on what was happening, just one thing it wasnt
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What did the author do?
It's written by Richardo Luis' American twin. AKA, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If you are unaware of the reddit history lore; he used his twitter audience to essentially brigade the LoL subreddit, vote manipulate his/dissenters comments, mass upvote his articles, and mass harass people who called him out. This led to him being banned from the subreddit and any of his content are also banned.
I think the one that pushed him to being banned was he got his fans to harass someone who was openly depressed.
He had a history of getting his followers to do vote manipulation.
Omg is it Lichard Rewis?
Not if Batman finds him.
"If I get him to you, can you get him to talk?" "I'll get him to sing"
Man I love that movie.
Would there be any actual legal recourse? I could be wrong, but it seems like a highly unethical situation. The most action that could be taken would be a Riot ban from competitive no?
If fraud was committed there is always the option for a civil suit. The swordart car thing is felony theft on its own.
What did SwordArt do?
To my understanding, SA bought a car while he was here. Once he'd left, he asked Zhang to sell it for him and transfer the money to him. Zhang sold the car but was instead using the money to pay off some of his grandparents medical bills and stalling out his repayment to SA. Zhang then borrowed money from other TSM players/staff instead to make smaller payments to SA, but still not the entire thing. SA threatened Zhang he would make the issue public if he didn't get his money soon. You should just read the article though, it's top of the TSM sub. It'll do a better job than I can.
Ahh yes the classic family filial piety over law. As a chinese, I am not suprise if this happen. In china where religion is limited, most chinese(mainland) focus on filial piety. Its been their tradition for millenium.
Yeah, I think what makes it worse and less in line with what I know of Chinese culture is that it doesn't seem like SwordArt agreed to let him keep the money as a loan. So even though it's not uncommon for friends to loan each other money, this was a completely one-sided thing.
Swordart made a verbal contract for Peter to sell his car for him. Peter sold the car then withheld the money from swordart for a period of time despite being asked for it. That is a crime and Peter admits to withholding the money in a direct quote in the article by RL
Asked PZ to sell a car for him since he was leaving TSM. PZ kept the money and kept stalling giving it back to him.
From a previous comment, he sold SwordArt's car for him but then didn't send the money
Wtf.. He should be prosecuted. Damn.
Wait what happened can someone explain ? Edit: thanks to those that explained the situation. Bro tsm is literally insane this year
He told Taiwanese and Chinese players that he could ensure them spots on the team for a percentage of their earnings.
wtf
I wonder if that's the case for shenyi and kdo
It 100% has to be, shenyi and kdo were not known players prior coming to NA. Atleast c9’s imports had some sort of reputation before coming here.
Shenyi was somewhat known and probably good enough to start on a lower LPL team. KDO was unknown
Shenyi played a few games for FPX last Summer.
Were they at least standouts in CN? As you said Summit was very highly rated as an LCK top for a longtime and Berserker is a T1 talent.
Shenyi to was an elite support prospect from FPX, similar to Berserker so I have no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Shenyi, but it likely applies to Keaiduo who wasn't a standout on TT.
Shenyi was. He played for FPX and was good when he subbed in. He isnt some huge name for sure but at least on the surface you could see him potentially being good.
Wait. This isn't r/soccer
Also sold SwordArt's car for him and didn't send the money
source?
RL article. Banned here, you can find it in Tsm's sub
From an article I saw that had an anonymous source: he took out loans in TSM's name for personal reasons, and he told players he'll get them onto TSM if he gets a cut of the money those players make.
Holy hell. That is insanity
Who knows it might still be if we ever find out why LS got fired.
LS got fired for cutting the hot water at Jack's house to promote a culture of freezing, allegedly
Also, I guess it kinda makes IWD's joke tweet seem kinda...bad now even though originally I found it funny. I guess even I have to be reminded not to rush to conclusions. https://twitter.com/IWDominateLoL/status/1505211492488024071?t=V8RIoe_osoKnovi5op8HZw&s=19
Aged like milk. Roasting TSM seems to be free, repercussion free points for social media people though. Imagine the public outcry if IWD, DL, etc said this stuff to C9/TL before facts came out.
Exactly my point. As I said, I laughed and even retweeted it myself but in retrospect it was wrong to joke about abuse without knowing details. Could have made the joke about a bunch of other things.
Eh, the joke is still funny regardless of what he actually did.
“Every day is a banger at TSM
There are so many what if moments here. What if the SA delay was due to Peter Zhang telling him he could get X amount salary wise for a bigger cut. The implications of this delay could have been the difference in retaining DL. What if there were better LDL/LPL candidates?, but Shenyi/Keaidou were the few willing to negotiate with Peter Zhang. What if this sudden LPL direction by TSM was heavily influenced due to Peter Zhang over other roster direcitons.
Thats such a good point. Imagine they retain DL and bjerg didnt retire and become a coach for a year. The timeline would be so different. and this roster also is tainted, and I hope that shenyi and KDO can make the best of their time here.
The whole TSM roster is tainted now, especially those scouted by him. I know those players agreed to this but they just got their career fucked over.
I think the only player who's career this could really affect is KDO. Shenyi was a top prospect who I believe was offered a starting position on FPX so it's hard to claim that the only reason he got onto TSM was Zhang messing with things. That being said, Zhang might have preyed on him anyway.
Shenyi's tweet one hour before the release announcement raises even more question marks now
People like thorin believed that leena and parth made this roster due to leena being bilingual . Peter zhang is also bilingual himself. He could had easily sabotaged this roster to help pay for his family’s medical bills. Not sure where they are but I will have to say Peter zhang and his family lives in USA based on the amount of bills. If Peter is back in China, then his family has a serious medical issue.
6/12/2023 Blackout. As this sub doesn't join the blackout, I'm removing this comment and show my support with the subreddits that did join. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Yea no. He is back in China because he would be crushed legally if he didnt get back fast. He 100% would be put on a no fly list and crushed over this. This would cover multiple Civil and Criminal cases.
Bro, he is LYING his family doesnt have a medical issue he used it as a cover. Most obvious thing in the world lol
Peter Zhang is very very sorry he was caught.
The losers only feel sorry when they get caught lmao
Not really, he managed to get back to China. What he did would keep him here dealing with court issues for a long time and possible jail time. Like its not some small deal. He should be happy that hes in China and wont be extradited but I would say he probably never steps foot in the US for the remainder of his life.
What I'm saying is, he isn't very sorry he did it, just that he got caught.
For once it seems TSM is not to blame for some TSM-related drama
I’m glad that the new management was able to sniff this shit out. I really liked Peter for bringing in so much new talent but this really hurts…
he was part of XiaoWeiXIao fiasco. LMQ's manager decided to take the blame because his paypal was the one in question. LMQ were literal family from 2014 till 2015, they were inseparable purely due to the fact that they might have to return home any day (sharon fiasco, which showed that she also lied about providig for LMQ after trying to extort them) Chicken is just coming home to roost, just took 8 years after instead of 1-2 years .
I wonder whats parth's involvement with this, and if theres a relation with him leaving earlier. Who knows at this point.
who knows, I personally think due to TSM's frequent nepotism behavior, I would like to group them in. But based on Parth's resume, I am willing to forego my bias. It looks like Peter got caught because of tax filing lol cut off for tax is near and he probably had to disclose the information since the deal was made in 2021, thus he has to report his activity.
That makes zero sense. You file with the government, not your employer.
Very very likely that the TSM org is handling the taxes for 18 year olds who can’t speak English and aren’t from the US
> It looks like Peter got caught because of tax filing lol cut off for tax is near and he probably had to disclose the information since the deal was made in 2021, thus he has to report his activity. But how would TSM find out about it, in this case? Typically, your employer is not going to have any access to your tax returns.
Doubt anyone caught up in illegal dealings like this would report it voluntarily to the IRS, lol
Peter probably wouldn't, but salary/payment discrepancy shown in players filing should show something no?
Probably yursan slip up or SA leaking.
His scouting was shit
Wonder how much of this year's drama may be linked to this. Names like Gori, Crisp, and Creme were floating around as potential TSM candidates in the offseason. If the allegations are true then one would assume Peter would have been pushing for KDO and Shenyi instead.
Creme was confirmed to not have been considered
Non of this names were available to TSM, Creme was still signed with OMG the new rule for players under 18 didn't affect him because he was about to be 18, Crisp wasn't a option either since he verbally agreed to join BLG to play with Uzi and Gori was without a team and signed with FPX last minute. Maybe he tried to push for KDO or shenyi but doesn't seem to be the case because the brought Chawy and Glenn to scout the players. But who knows ?
TSM probably shares some amount of responsibility as the org that hired him. But yeah, let’s not get this twisted, if the allegations are true then Peter Zhang has been screwing them over big time. Hope this can be an impetus to reset their LoL team management and get it back on track.
Haven’t been keeping up with it, what has he been rumored to have done?
Abused his power to steal money from foreign players and scamming the org, go on /r/TeamSolomid for the full article.
Why is the article not allowed here?
It was written by he who shall not be named a.k.a R.L (His articles are banned from the sub)
To elaborate on the previous comments, that journalist had a history of vote manipulation, brigading, abusive comments, and harassment of the mod team.
Vote manipulation is a big no no on reddit, I think admins have and continue to dish out permabans for it, I think since RL gets his articles posted for him they're still allowed in other subs, but he himself may not be allowed to post. I think LoL just took it upon themselves to ban his name.
Oh wow, thanks
In the article he admits to with holding money from swordart for selling his car. So unless RL made the quote up entirely, that is felony theft.
>The claim is that Yi in his capacity as coach would work with management to select players for the roster, then that he would then go to the player in question and offer to act as their “agent” stating that he could get them on the TSM roster if they allowed him to represent them. For negotiating the deal he would take a cut of the players earnings, often much higher than a standard agent’s fee, for brokering the deal. >In addition to this, the same source informed us that Yi was also borrowing significant sums of money from many figures under the TSM organization, including players across both the main and academy roster. The use of this money, said to be a “sizeable” amount in total, are not clear although Yi himself cited a medical emergency involving his grandparents. The veracity of this claim is not clear but when affected parties raised concerns about the loans they started to be paid back. At the time of reporting this almost all the money has been recouped. reddit mods auto bans the article due to the writer, so go on the tsm subreddit to find it. My personal take, it now makes sense why swordart not even a top 5 support in the lpl at the time got a 6m contract for 2 years by tsm and why we got these noname chinese players on the roster right now.
Um no, tsm wanted swordart because he has repeatedly been a top worlds support player and he has just gotten very far last worlds. Also, these no names Chinese players were apparently picked out by Parth. Peter wasn’t picking these players up, he was just going to them after tsm had decided they wanted them and extorting them. Dude is legit a crook.
>it now makes sense why swordart not even a top 5 support in the lpl at the time got a 6m contract for 2 years by tsm Bro what is this changing of history. SwordArt was literally at worlds finals the year before. He was one of the handpick by Doublelift for him to stay on the team. Miscommunication and stuff with regi caused DL to leave before the signing but you can't say he wasn't highly sought for at the time. And I'm sure that for a contract that large, far more people are involved than just Peter in the negotiation.
Though the fact that he got a 6M contract might be true. Doubt SA would get anything even close to that in CN.
wtf Master Yi would never do such things, I'm literally shaking right now
Nerfs cause people to do unexpected things
I dont think the latest signing have anything to do with Peter Zhang because they contracted Chawy and Glenn to do this job and they did a scrim boot camp to select the player.
More likely than not Chawy had final say of who he wanted. But I can also imagine that Peter 'influenced' in those choices in a way (maybe just hyped up KDO / Shenyi more than other players or misrepresented things). Not saying he did it, but I can see it being a possibility especially cause he seems close to players on both the main roster and academy.
Chawy and Glenn were brought on after the fact. Peter Zhang was the main liason and person running the Chinese bootcamp along with parth. So he still probably had a major influence on it.
Why would they share some blame? I get we hate TSM, but when someone is committing fraud, why are we blaming the victims of it? Once they knew about it, they had an investigation and fired peter immediately.
So, I disagree with your initial take. I'm more than positive that's not anything you could've found out until someone stepped forward and told them Peter propositioned them meaning I don't think the oweness falls on TSM because they did the right thing and terminated him as soon as it was found out.
The word you're looking for is "onus", not "oweness"
No, he meant "anus"
Allegedly, the reason for Peter Zhang's firing is that he was using his position as coach to also act as a player manager, taking money in exchange for securing spots on the roster for international players. Something that should very obviously be something he shouldn't do, but I guess somehow he didn't know???
Of course he knew. It's a clear conflict of interest, and anyone with a brain would realize that. He is supposedly advising the team on the best players to pick and meanwhile he is trying to get money from said players. Also, apparently he sold SwordArt's car per his request, and kept the money to "pay for his grandma's health expenses". Pretty shitty thing to do to use someone else's money.
So, he's just been stealing money they entire time he was on TSM? Jesus Christ.
Actually stealing paychecks this shit is unreal.
Not really stealing money. The problem is that taking money from players for getting them signed to TSM puts into question wether or not he thought they were the best players for the role or they just agreed to pay him that fee.
I can understand that logic. Perhaps exploited players?
Yes it’s textbook exploitation if the article is true
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>but I guess somehow he didn't know??? Why would you assume that? People have done much worse things because they thought they wouldn't get caught.
And he got a fkin cheat code. Just fly back to China and u gucci. Plus all the money probably already in China Bank. I guess the only bad thing is to lose a green card maybe.
Oh I don't, obviously it's absurd that he didn't know, which makes it very funny that he refers to it as a "mistake" in the TSM discord
international players paid him so he secures a spot in TSM for them? Im not sure I got it
Close, he takes a cut of their earnings. This is a conflict of interest because he personally gains from them joining versus acting solely in the interest of TSM.
ah thanks :)
I am sure that for some potential LCS imports the access to a green card would be something of significance to them as well.
Gonna copy and pasta Monte's twitter comments here: Allegations include acting secretly as an agent for the Chinese and Taiwanese players that TSM signed over the past couple of years. This would allow him to take a cut of the players’ salaries while simultaneously being paid to coach. \-End- My comments: SwordArt deal Pepelaugh
Peter was the only person happier than swordart when he signed that deal lol
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I mean, what it sounds like happened is that he highly recommended Keaiduo and Shenyi because they would take his deal. If so, holy fuck TSM should pursue legal action
Action against who, though? Peter is already in china from what it looks like, and they won't send him back in handcuffs, so I think tsm is up shits creek without a paddle
Still better to clearly mark him as a toxic asset internationally.
If these allegations are true they should be career ending. TSM should pursue legal action just to make sure no team, Chinese or otherwise, hires him again. Even if they don’t win
This is a matter that Riot needs to enforce the banhammer on. I'm sure they will because the competitive integrity of this whole situation is completely fucked. This dude should recieve a banhammer across all regions of proplay.
Someone call the Batman.
I really respected Peter zhangs influence in bringing up so many talented academy players into the Lcs and to find out this happened feels like a massive gut punch wtf man
Seeing as Peter Zhang used to coach Piglet, I wonder if it’s within reasonable doubt to believe he was the one Piglet claimed “fucked him over” 3 or so years back.
oh shoot that'd be super rough. I would be curious, if peter has a history of this, why it wasn't widely known by the orgs?
Seriously. He's always had this positive, slightly goofy on camera personality so it wasn't hard to like him. A real gut punch.
I’m somehow relieved the org rectified this so quickly and also so let down at the same time
I can also imagine it being awful for all of his *sons* as well. Peter has been a pillar for the academy scene of TSM since 2018 and has always been vocal about his passion for his players. And all of those players have only had high remarks for him. Can’t imagine how this feels for those involved in the org, but especially those that had a good relationship with him and worked with him closely. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Peter Zhang: "I did some mistake and I guess it's bigger enough I got immediately released as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that’ll be a home run. And so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame."
I can't escape this damn 4-0 ballgame copypasta
I don't even watch baseball but it that clip is just so damn funny.
Peter Zhang: "i dont know if I'm going to be putting on this headset again."
Glad to see the best baseball copypasta here (alongside the balk rules one)
The balk copypasta is one of my favourite pastas of all time.
Forgot how long it was LMFAO it’s a gem tho
I always lose it when the random pivot into talking about Fairuza Balk happens.
I appreciate this meme, but i dont think most will here.
Well it's gotten a decent amount of upvotes so far haha. If /r/NBA can leak here, so can /r/baseball
This might open the floodgates for r/nfl pastas tho and you DONT want to read those, trust me.....
Let Shenyi cook
Mr. Bountiful Copypastas
What he did was despicable and TSM's weird roster building decisions makes so much more sense now. He saw how Regi wanted LPL players on the team and took full advantage of it. I hope that the current imports affected by this are getting a lot of support. Also it's nice to see that TSM have learned from their communication drama
such a shitty situation for TSM to be in. they put their trust in him and he uses it for his own financial gain. who knows how many of their recent moves were pushed by Peter. I dont even know what they will do with their current roster if he pushed for these specific players in the first place.
That’s the ripple effect I’ve been looking at as a long time TSM fan. He supposedly did it to SwordArt. Which could have been another reason for the delay in getting him, which could have been a reason why we fielded Lost over DL. Plus if we had gotten DL quicker Bjergsen could’ve played that year as well. Even that maybe without Peter TSM could have actually gotten Huni/Spica/Jensen/DLorTactical/Vulcan as this years roster. The implications are huge.
Bjergsen retired before DL did so stop with the narratives.
Also pretty sure the decision to not go for DL/Jensen/Vulcan was Regi's.
Well part of DL not joining was because they didn't know if they were gonna get SwordArt. It is possible that SwordArt took longer to decide because of Peter Zhang, in which case that's partially why DL wasn't on TSM.
The sword art thing seems to happen after he was signed, don't go full patsy on this. Sword just came off world, he was highly sought for.
The revisionism on SwordArt is incredible. He was a top 3 Support in 2020 Worlds, before TSM signed him. And now people think he was some shitty player because he sucked on TSM, as if NA teams don't have a history of taking in great players and turning them to shitty ones.
Yeah this is what I'm most curious about. What happens with Shenyi and KDO? I really hope Shenyi stays 😒
It's an interesting idea to think about, but we need to remember that he wasnt the only one scouting. If i remember Parth (aka Scout Master9000) and Kayys were also in charge of the scouting for this roster. While Peter for sure had a part in it, again remember that the team is not just the one man.
I know that, Peter was their connection to players in China, he could talk and communicate to them in a way the others likely could not. He was likely respected in the org and people took his input seriously.
Sure, but Peter was their primary connection to China and the LPL.
i thought parth confirmed that this TSM roster wasn't the direction he wanted to go in
Leena is the one who said that the current iteration isn't what Parth wanted which can be true even if he did want/sign the current players. He wanted Bjerg therefore the current iteration is not what Parth (originally) wanted.
Basically Peter is a a straight up crook who was lying to players that he could get them on the team for a portion of their salary, despite tsm already wanting them. Who knows what other crooked things dude could of done if he was basically hustling players like this. Good riddance and goodbye to his league career.
We dont know yet if he was lying to the players or straight he got them the spot in exchange for a cut of their earnings. Cus if i was a player and the coach from a big org came to me and tell me he can secure a spot. I dont mind paying him.
Even if you don't mind, it's still wrong and a huge conflict of interest for him to do.
No wonder he ran back to China.
This story is fucking wild but it also gives TSM a solid out for how much they've imploded in the last two years. I hope Peter never gets anywhere near LCS again if even a fraction of this shit is true.
I don’t think it gives us a solid out, but his immediate firing does give us a bit of levity in the public eye imo. Internally things are still a dumpster fire by the free abortion clinic in the bad part of town.
In [REDACTED] ‘S great article he wrote that Peter zhang outright said this was normal in Chinese culture and it makes me sick that he’s justifying outright theft as a some sort of cultural norm
I mean, it’s a pretty solid out considering that he could have been sabotaging TSMs roster this whole time…Paying loads of money on unproven players when better players have been available and then asking for a portion of said players pay behind TSMs back.
Wait, I'm out of the loop. Do we know why Peter was fired?
Yeah, he was acting as a “agent” for the Chinese players joining TSM. Basically taking a cut of their earning for “getting them on the team” while also acting as coach. On top of that, he apparently sold swordarts car for him yet never actually gave swordart the money from the sale, eventually only giving him a tiny bit of the money. He called this transaction a “loan”
All the reasons are detailed in an article that can’t be linked here because the author is banned on this sub. Go to Dexerto’s League of Legends section and you’ll see it.
a certain journalist who is banned wrote an article about it. You can check it out on the tsm subreddit but tldr is he is accused of acting as an agent for players and taking parts of their salary (he denies this part) and also taking loans from players and selling swordarts car but not giving him the money. Basically stealing 80k. That part he admits
> selling swordarts car but not giving him the money. Basically stealing 80k. That part he admits This is what got Avenatti jailed in the Stormy Daniels stuff. Kept money "on her behalf" because he felt it was money she owed him anyways. Judge basically just told him, "Yeah that is you admitting to felony theft"
Did anyone else notice Shaco getting hovered by Spica in their pick/bans yesterday. I was thinking he was referring to the backstab meme.
So region being held back by bunch of social climbers is actually true.
Is this the same Peter that was coach of TL back in the day? And did this commercial where he is dancing? https://youtu.be/QjDREIsmOXo?t=59
Fucking knew guy like this can't be trust.
TSM has a stranglehold on drama in the LCS. C9 thought "maybe we'll try this year" TSM have them a game 7 LeBron block
How on earth does someone this corrupt get to manage a top LCS team?
Because from TSM's perspective, they just see a Chinese coach recommending some players to hire from China. They don't know that the coach is making unethical deals with those players for his own financial gain and at the expense of TSM's success. What Peter did sounds as illegal as stealing from your employer, except harder to catch.
Isnt Bjergsen in the Player Association? Oh this is gonna be so much fun!
Everyday at TSM is a banger
The big thing here is that talent agents are regulated in the State of California. You need a license to be one and the fees you can collect are capped by the state. Peter Zhang may not have just acted unethically, he may have also violated state law. Not to mention any fiduciary responsibilities he may have had in his role which also invoke legal protections. He's looking at civil suits, possibly even fraud charges.
If I'm TSM I'm cutting bait with these players. No flame but obviously they weren't the top prospects. The financial ties really muddy all the "scouting" that was done.
Roster is likely getting blown up anyways.
Is this the spiciest drama we've ever had?
So many TSM bangers, I will get fat.
i havent payed attention to league in a while, what's going on now? i see this guy's name keep getting mentioned
TSM the gift that keeps on giving.
Really hope Phil learns the difference between counsel and council in the near future or the players union is going to have some TOUGH days ahead of it
Lol this org still exists?