UPDATE (January 3rd): Since publishing this article, we’ve received comment from other people close to Singularity and involved in some of these situations.
One source told us that during Zeus’ time with Magistra, some players received payment late – they had to apparently wait until Atle Stehouwer, the owner of Singularity, paid them out of his own pocket.
Another source said that Zeus ‘threw water bottles at his players’ at the ESL Prem finals, but as we understand it he threw bottles, but not at the players. Zeus will get to tell his side of the story in full on ENUK shortly.
A third source from another separate org told Esports News UK that Zeus tried to ‘poach’ one of their players who was under contract, but refused to pay a buyout and ended up getting the player for nothing.
It’s worth noting here we have comment from Team Singularity, Zeus and another source close to Singularity – we’ll publish those comments in a separate article soon.
The main comment we had to add to this article was from Mario “Selwyn” Tomic, a potential investor in Singularity, and co-owner of esports org Public Enemy.
Mario told Esports News UK: “Zeus promised me and [Public Enemy co-owner] Aiden Farmer a lot of things, a multi billion dollar company investing, having insane resources to work with etc.
“We had a lot of meetings, discussed many things and obviously we wouldn’t want to make a rushed decision if to invest or not. Some time past, and I got approached by Zeus again who said he was worried about not affording his rent, and would urgently need money to pay [former Singularity coach] Matko “Feanor” Jemric’s salary for that month.
“As naive as I am I pitied him and paid for it. At that point I should’ve got suspicious – how can an org with multiple teams not afford a low cost salary? I was promised to get the money back on December 1st. I haven’t seen any money yet.
“So when ESL finals happened and all that dirty stuff with Zeus happened (cursing at players, throwing water bottles), one of our conditions to invest into SNG was that Zeus gets kicked. The owner Atle Stehouwer promised us to kick Zeus and repair the damaged image.
“So we thought things were taking care off, when a week after the incident I get a message from Zeus that he wants to talk to me about our position in the org if we happen to invest. Zeus tells me he’s going to be our supervisor and take care of everything we do.
“So clearly something doesn’t add up here. After all of that we slowly realised that [in our opinion] the whole idea was just a scam. They sugar coat us with lies, telling us how they want us for our qualities, how much they can profit from our skills etc, how we would get a ”big’ salary as soon as those big investors get involved, although all they ever wanted was our money. So we tried to see how legit all of it was by asking for a proper contract that we would let our lawyers prove. Once we mentioned that, things heated up, the owner got really angry at us and accused us of the weirdest things.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE (published January 1st):
Danish esports organisation and ESL LoL Premiership runners-up Team Singularity have come under fire on Twitter.
Royal Bandits head coach Marcus “Blumigan” Blom made a series of accusations against Singularity yesterday evening, claiming that the organisation have attempted to scam investors, hold off payments for their players and decline offers from other orgs without telling their players.
It’s worth noting these are currently accusations, not facts with solid proof. Although Blumigan has shared some screenshots of chat logs, it’s not clear who those are with.
You can see the full list of accusations from this thread by Blumigan on Twitter:
Team Singularity at it again lying about investors and trying to make players play for free.
Ill match any offer they give their league division with money from my own pocket. Scammers do NOT belong in esports.
— – Marcus (@Blumigan) December 31, 2017
The accusations are predominantly targeted towards Singularity manager Frederik “Zeus” Holst.
Former Singularity coach Matko “Feanor” Jemric, who coached the side in the ESL League of Legends Premiership last split, also weighed in:
Strongly advise anyone against joining Singularity.
Still waiting for salary and prize money from the last UK Prem split.
So are some of the former players.— Matko Jemric (@Coach_Feanor) December 31, 2017
Esports News UK can confirm that some players are still waiting for several payments. However, on the accusations, one source close to the situation told us: “Unfortunately most of this is true, albeit framed in a way to make Zeus look particularly bad, when most of what he did was due to incompetence rather than greed.”
Another source said to take Blumigan’s tweets ‘with a pinch of salt’.
ESL UK confirmed that Singularity have been paid for their performance in the ESL Premiership last split.
Blumigan, Team Singularity and Zeus have now responded to Esports News UK’s requests for comment. We’ll write a new article shortly.
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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.
