Fourth Wall, the UK esports organisation formed by former management staff of X7, will be competing in the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC) Division 1 next season.
Fourth Wall were previously playing in Division 2 of the NLC, which is the EMEA Regional League for the UK, Ireland, Nordics and Malta. Now they’ll be playing in Division 1, having taken Thundr’s spot.
Thundr, who have now ceased esports operations, recently claimed their spot from Riddle Esports, who withdrew from the NLC last month after winning the Spring Division 1 Split.
The NLC published a statement on its Twitter page, saying: “Offering the spot to the next Division 2 team in line would be the best way to go, as the Thundr player core had already been transferred to other teams.
“Therefore, the spot was offered to Lundqvist Lightside, who chose to decline based on their long-term goals, sustainability, and scheduling issues for the upcoming split. The next team in line was Fourth Wall, who got the offer and accepted it.
“After reviewing Fourth Wall’s plans and goals for the split, we believe the organisation is ready to take on the challenge and can act as a suitable replacement for Thundr.”
NLC welcomed Fourth Wall to NLC Division 1, and mentioned the live events Fourth Wall have been running.
Lundqvist Lightside CEO Jakke13 also put out a statement, saying: “We were offered the open spot, but after internal deliberation, we have chosen to decline. There are many factors behind this close call, more than I can go into detail here.
“We are sorry to disappoint those that called for us to take the step up. But know that Division 1 is still very much in our aim.”
Lundqvist Lightside went into further detail in the statement.
Fourth Wall Head of Operations, Newts, told Esports News UK:
“I’m delighted to get the opportunity for Fourth Wall to compete in the NLC Div 1. It was short notice, but we couldn’t turn down this great opportunity. We hope to give a good account of ourselves and look forward to going head-to-head with some other fantastic orgs and players.”
Newts, Fourth Wall
Fourth Wall first announced they had formed at the start of this year. They will join other UK orgs in NLC Division 1 including Ruddy Esports and Verdant.
Player pay conflict (update – now resolved)
Following the announcement, former Fourth Wall player Pehrson commented in a now-deleted tweet, saying: “Big move by FW, maybe they can pay the players in div1.”
Esports News UK understands all the players bar Pehrson had agreed to take a cut of their last month’s wage (their third month) as they had only played two weeks. However, Pehrson’s tweet appears to be at odds with this, and one source claims Pehrson wasn’t contacted until two weeks later and didn’t agree to be paid less.
We’ve been told the split only ended three days earlier, and it seems Pehrson believes they should have been paid for the full split, a full four-month contract. Esports News UK understands most of the players agreed to the salary cut before Pehrson managed to speak to them. On top of this, a source claimed Fourth Wall players did a month of scrims ‘without pay’ in January, while another source claims the contracts started in February.
The insinuation is that the players lost, the split was over, and so the org tried to cut their losses. Esports News UK also understands there may have been some internal disagreements.
Clearly there’s a disagreement here – we have reached out to Pehrson and Fourth Wall to clarify and will update this article if we hear back with any on-record comment.
Update: The situation has now been resolved and the parties have come to an agreement.
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.
