The owners of UK eSports organisation Choke Gaming have parted ways with manager Vince Clarke.
eSports Interactive say they have removed Vince from the organisation “due to numerous complaints from our sponsors resulting from a serious conflict of interest and failures in properly planning and completing organisational tasks”.
Vince had recently taken on a separate marketing role for Crucial and its Ballistix gaming brand, and eSports News UK has been told he was focusing heavily on promoting that over Choke’s other sponsors – hence the ‘conflict of interest’.
It’s understood he had also been planning a rebrand for Choke, allegedly without informing the organisation’s owners, and had missed a number of shareholder meetings.
Vince is still a 25 per cent shareholder of eSports Interactive, but the firm states that he does not own Choke.
League of Legends UK Facebook community admin and Eclipse Gaming Arena manager Tom Villiers has been appointed interim manager. He will hold this role until Choke finds a permanent replacement.
The Choke Gaming website is currently displaying a holding page with the following text: “This site has been reserved on Esportsify and will be launching soon.”
eSports Interactive Limited (trading as Choke Gaming) sent the following statement to eSports News UK over the matter:
“Since starting Choke Gaming in 2014, eSports Interactive have enjoyed a successful two years and we hope to continue in 2016, with a return to our roots promoting friendly and competitive eSports within the UK League of Legends and Counter-Strike scene.
“Unfortunately, due to numerous complaints from our sponsors resulting from a serious conflict of interest and failures in properly planning and completing organisational tasks, it is with regret that we must now announce that following a meeting at 2pm on January 16th 2016, our shareholders have unanimously voted to remove Vincent Clark from Choke Gaming. This also means that effective as of 2pm on the 16th of January 2016, Vincent is no longer the manager in charge of our brand, Choke Gaming.
“We wish Vincent all the best in the future in whatever field he is next involved in. In closing, we would like to thank all of our sponsors and players for their support over the past two years, and look forward to further successes in 2016 as we refocus the Choke brand.”
Choke has established itself as one of the leading UK eSports organisations since relaunching in 2014, impressing in both the League of Legends and CSGO scenes. Its League of Legends team won i56 last month, featuring a temporary mix of players from different teams.
Vince joined Choke back in 2004 as part of its Counter-Strike team – before the Choke Gaming brand made its comeback in 2014.
Vince has been in touch with eSports News UK for his side of the story.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
