Having been around for almost five years now, Lionscreed are a familiar name in UK esports. But while they’ve made an impact in League of Legends, Fortnite and more, with partnerships in Manchester and beyond, ask rival teams in private what they think of them and you won’t always get smiles and praise due to some past controversies and their abrasive nature.
Lionscreed founder Abdiqani Ahmed (aka Abdi) reached out to ENUK editor Dom Sacco to address this and turn over a new leaf ahead of a potentially big new year for the team organisation, who are looking to become a more UK-wide org whilst not forgetting their London roots. We also spoke about their new NLC roster and how they’re changing in 2024.
It’s Christmas Eve and I’ve only wrapped two f****** presents I’m panicking about last minute family preparations when I spot a message on the Esports News UK Discord server.
“Big yikes. Another UK org behaving like this,” it reads. [the message has since been removed to protect the source]
I click the link. It takes me to this tweet:
FFS, I think to myself, I don’t have time to jump on a piece of UK League of Legends drama. Not now, not on Christmas Eve.
I make a note to follow up on the situation after Christmas.
But I don’t need to, because on Christmas Day, a couple of members of Lionscreed staff DM me first, to say the situation had been resolved and it was a mistake on their part around budgets and negotiations.
I make a note about potentially covering it later, given the downtime over Christmas.
The holidays fly by, and on January 2nd, another Discord notification pops up on my screen.
“Hey Dom, do you mind if we can get some time together?” it reads. “I wanted to speak on record on a lot of stuff being assumed by people.”
It’s from Lionscreed founder Abdi. His organisation has just acquired a spot in Division 1 of the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the EMEA Regional League for the UK, Ireland and Nordics, taking them up from Division 2, so I assume it’s about that.
“Sure,” I respond. “When can you chat?”
I suggest tomorrow morning, but Abdi isn’t around then, so I propose chatting now instead, and that way I can also get some comment on a fresh piece of news direct from the source.
“I don’t have a ton of transcription time right now,” I tell Abdi. “Would 10-15mins be enough time, do you think?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says.
We end up speaking for over two hours.
Lionscreed acquire NLC Division 1 spot, leaked roster lists South Korean players Tempt and Winter 7
I was wrong. Abdi didn’t want to chat about the Div 1 slot, he wanted to address, well, everything.
During our chat, someone else messages me with the link to the news, saying: “Have you seen this Dom? Not sure Lionscreed are an org we want in the NLC, not gonna lie to you.”
I see why Abdi has reached out to me to address this stance some people have.
But before we get onto all that, let’s cover the NLC news.
Lionscreed have acquired Vanir’s spot in Division 1 of the NLC, for an undisclosed fee, and Vanir have taken Lionscreed’s spot in Division 2.
Lionscreed maintain their League of Legends academy team in the UKEL and their women’s team competing in women’s tournaments.
I hear about the team’s NLC roster and plan coverage accordingly, but it’s leaked early by Sheep Esports. Abdi declined to confirm the validity of the roster.
Regardless, if true, it’s a hell of a roster, with Banderas, Winter 7, Tempt, Jinjo and Kasing. It reminds me of the old X7 Esports roster of 2022 in terms of its potential and stature (not to mention both including Tempt and Kasing).
“I’m excited to see how the NLC Spring 2024 split goes,” Abdi tells me. “I feel like we have a very good chance and a lot of things to offer in the NLC. We are spending quite a bit on this roster. I really want to do it properly, I think there’s a lot of fear around the NLC, and I was scared around it too, but essentially for us there’s more to it than the roster.
“We’ll do events and activations around the team, they’re the biggest things that will turn people’s heads. I’ve been successful in the past in terms of sponsorships, without big player names, so I’m ambitious about what I can do and making good use out of it.
“I want to build a strong roster and off the back of this, I’m going to invest and try to build a proper academy structure.
“My goal is to try and bring brands into the NLC ecosystem and to develop a proper academy structure within our team as well. Our goal longer-term is we’d like to start localising our talent as we go on, but that’ll be a process. We need to create the right infrastructure first.”
While Lionscreed have a base in Manchester, they started out as a London organisation.
“We’re slowly trying to represent ourselves as more of an England-based organisation. We don’t have the funding the hit all the areas at once,” Abdi continues.
“Lions Clash was our attempt to try and create hubs across the UK with engaging activities. We did a SideQuest event in 2020 and started moving into Manchester, we hired a local team there but we scaled it back and we’re trying to figure out how to do it sustainably.”
Abdi on returning as Lionscreed CEO full-time and past controversies
Abdi has placed trust in his team at Lionscreed to manage things while he’s been doing separate agency work over the past year or two. He also consults for In4 Group and its Manchester Esports Academy. But in the beginning, he worked multiple jobs to fund and form Lionscreed.
“I saved up working two to three jobs and invested it into building my brand in 2018 and 2019,” Abdi says.
With Lionscreed COO and Abdi’s good friend Dale Adams stepping away from the organisation due to personal reasons, Abdi is being reinstated as CEO of Lionscreed from February 2024. The two moves are not linked, but Abdi wants to have a more direct involvement in the org once again.
“I previously stepped back to let my team handle things while I focused on other projects,” Abdi explains.
“I’m in the middle of a buyback process of shares, coming back full-time to make LC what I envisioned it as the founder. And I’m fixing up on everything from October to now.”
“I’ve changed a lot, personally. I used to be very outspoken and defensive, but we’re getting to five years in and I’ve learnt a lot. I don’t want people to think we don’t like them, because it’s not the case. We want to make the UK proud.”
Abdi, Lionscreed
On Lionscreed addressing past controversies (addressed separately further in the article), Abdi says: “Situations have come up with Lionscreed in the past and that’s something we want to change. I’ve also changed a lot, personally. I used to be very outspoken and defensive, but we’re getting to five years in and I’ve learnt a lot. My social media presence is low, I post something every five or six months.
“So I’ve definitely changed and put my focus on other things. While that’s a benefit and I don’t personally get in trouble, we’ve lost a voice, because I would give our side of the story. At this point, hate doesn’t faze me. I feel like the UK League community doesn’t like us but we’re not trying to ruin anything, we let people believe what they wanted to believe, we didn’t address past situations like we should have done.”
Abdi goes back to the NLC news.
“League was the first game we went into and we wanted to make it work. It’s been an ambition of ours. We’ve wanted to play in the NLC [Division 1] for a while now, the first attempt at the acquisition was actually last year. But that didn’t go as well as we wanted to,” Abdi admits.
Lionscreed’s attempt to acquire an NLC Div 1 spot from Nyyrikki in 2023 – and scam accusations
Abdi tells us: “In 2023, we wanted to buy Nyyrikki’s NLC spot. The founder [and CEO Martti ‘SuBa’ Vahimets] wanted to get the deal done, I put a down payment in early because he had personal issues. It wasn’t approved by Lionscreed but I did it. The pre-payment was done before we reached an agreement, I did that out of goodwill. I sent him about €3,500 initially, but I didn’t want to pay the full price.
“He then spoke to the Domino owner who agreed to buy it, but the NLC somehow already assigned the slot to us. We contacted the NLC saying we approve of the Domino deal. NYYRIKKI got the money from the Domino sale, he apparently went missing and he disappeared off the face of the Earth, we got scammed.
“We went to a debt collection agency in Finland to see if we could recover the cash, and they said to us it’s not worth it because others are trying to recover cash too, they said it’d be a waste of time.
“We could’ve made a statement, but it’s been seven or eight months now, we know that money’s gone. What hurts us the most is that people assume we scammed him.”
Esports News UK has attempted to reach out to Nyyrikki’s founder for his side of the story and his views on Abdi’s claims, but has not yet received a response.
On the Jinjo situation
On the morning of Christmas Eve, LoL player Jinjo said: “Unfortunately two months of a verbal agreement has been broken and I am as of now looking for any last minute opportunities as ADC in 2024 ERL.”
Fabian Broich, the founder of Achieveminds, the player and performance agency Jinjo is signed to, added: “Ronan is a tremendous player and hard working teammate that got left blank by Lionscreed after having agreements.”
LC founder Abdi said he saw the tweet and wasn’t aware of what exactly had happened internally, so reached out to Fabian direct to investigate and sort. After looking into it, he admitted it was a mistake on Lionscreed’s part around budgets and negotiations.
“We made a mistake and it’s in our interest to fix that,” Abdi says. “We were eager to get it done, but there should’ve been more communication.”
After talking to both parties, ENUK understands the situation has now been resolved.
On leaving the UKEL back in 2019: ‘Dropping out of the UKEL was avoidable and I could’ve handled it better’
Back in 2019, Lionscreed left the League of Legends UK Esports League (UKEL) midway through the season.
This obviously caused issues for the tournament staff and also the other teams, who received auto wins instead of playing Lionscreed like they should have done.
Abdi says this was for two reasons.
“One, I was being immature, and two, a situation involving a player’s personal situation occurred and I didn’t have the experience to deal with it properly,” he admits.
“Dropping out of the UKEL was avoidable, it was a stupid decision from me. It wasn’t a normal situation but I reacted disgustingly. I didn’t think the ruleset was acceptable in regards to what happened, we didn’t get leniency and that pissed me off, but to be honest I could’ve handled it better.
“I’ve since apologised and made up with the UKEL team.”
Today, Lionscreed are back in the UKEL with their academy team. Last year, their women’s team, the Lionscreed Lionesses, became the first women’s team to qualify for the UKEL (pictured below).
Everything else
There are a few other instances of drama Lionscreed have been involved in. Some of these were addressed at the time. They include:
- Lionscreed release League of Legends player for threatening behaviour (February 2022)
- Anti-gamer pulls plug on PC of Lionscreed UK Fortnite player Bloomy at DreamHack Summer 2023 (June 2023)
- Drawing the curtain: LionsCreed, Esports Scotland and making DMs public to seek the truth in esports – opinion (June 2020)
I’ll be honest. I haven’t always had the smoothest of working relationships with Lionscreed myself, mainly due to their responses to my previous coverage of them. But this has improved over time, and they have shown willingness to learn and improve.
In late 2022 I wrote this piece about Lionscreed levelling up. They have some interesting plans that still aren’t public and I look forward to seeing how they shape up.
ENUK understands there were some other incidents in the past. Some we haven’t mentioned for various reasons, some legal, some ethical, and some because they are not relevant. And some past situations are being addressed privately.
‘We want to make the UK proud’ – final words
Abdi says: “We want to see what we can do to better the scene. At the end of the day, people can say what they like about us. I’m here to build a business and better the scene.
“Any problems with Lionscreed, my DMs are open and I’m happy to respond to any questions or comments people have on socials. I haven’t been running the brand the past few years, I’ve overseen it, and last year I took a step back.”
“I’m excited to see how the NLC Spring 2024 split goes. I really want to do it properly, I think there’s a lot of fear around the NLC [and how things are perceived], and I was scared in the past too, but essentially for us there’s more to it than the roster. We’ll do things that will turn people’s heads.”
Abdi, Lionscreed
Abdi concludes: “Esports is amazing because you learn so many things and you can apply them to the real world. I thank people for being understanding. I don’t want people to think we don’t like them, because it’s not the case. We want to make the UK proud.
“We want to be a proper business and brand and serve our purpose. That’s what we want to do, end of story.”
The question is: will parts of the UK LoL community be willing to look past some of the prior controversies and give Lionscreed a chance to change their minds, and prove themselves?
Actions speak louder than words – now it’s down to Lionscreed to deliver.
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.
