The organisers of the Freydis Games Valorant tournament for women and marginalised genders have responded to complaints of late payments.
The tournament took place in December 2023 and featured a prize pool of £1,800, with £1,000 set aside for the winner, £600 for the runners-up and £200 for third place.
However, players took to social media to complain about not having received their prize money half a year later.
Miiizzy, who previously won the Valorant Women’s Cup at i71, and finished second in the Freydis Games, said:
Others criticised the tournament, with Billie Purdie of Women in Esports saying: “Really sad to see this as it’s just damaging for the fe/mg scene, they straight up just copied and pasted our Women in Esports Lioness Cup rulebook too. Hopefully you get your prize pool soon.”
Sources told Esports News UK that the first place team, npcs, received their prize money, ‘after threatening legal action against the organisers’, while the second and third place teams (Peoplessss and Invicta Esports) were not paid at the same time. However, we understand payments have now been sorted for the second-place team.
The Freydis Games was organised by London Business Specialists (LBS), the UK Master Franchisee holder of Valhallan, a US esports training provider for young people. LBS previously announced plans to open more than 100 Valhallan esports centres throughout the UK by 2029.
Valhallan opened its first esports arena in Ealing last year.
LBS is run by Dr Amit Sra and Vivek Behl, and employs UK caster Harry ‘Docda’ Evans, plus Ryan Gohir, general manager of the Chiswick centre. It also has several esports coaches on zero-hours contracts, including Valhallan Valorant coach Roomba, who organised the Freydis Games on Valhallan’s behalf (you can see the results and players involved on the Liquipedia page).
Why were the Freydis Games prize pool payments delayed?
Esports News UK understands there were a few reasons for the payment delays.
Teams were asked to send invoices for the payments. However, these invoices were missing a bunch of key info, such as the date of the invoice, the date of the tournament, currency, addresses and a clear description of what they’re charging for, so they were rejected by LBS’ accountants.
This caused delays, with LBS’ accountants sending the invoices back to be written correctly. This back and forth slowed things down.
We also learnt that staff at Valhallan wrote some of the invoices on behalf of the players, to try and help them.
Another reason for the delay was that senior management was not quick enough to step in and sort the situation out, with Dr Amit Sra and Vivek Behl not as involved as they could have been.
It seems that staff like Docda and Roomba were caught in the middle between players chasing them up for payment, and their bosses, who were not sorting the situation out promptly.
Another reason for the delays was management sending some of the money to Roomba to sort out, however we understand Roomba was abroad on holiday at the time, and the money got stuck in escrow, but eventually went through to the first place winners. There was also confusion around the amounts and what was due to be paid when.
All of this, combined with the fact that the payment situation should’ve been made clearer to participants, resulted in delays.
However, we are told that payments are now being sorted, with management assisting with the invoices.
Vivek Behl, UK Master Franchisee holder of Valhallan and co-owner of London Business Specialists (LBS), told Esports News UK: “We’re here to help people, we’re here to help and educate individuals on how to write an invoice with business acumen.
“We’re both dismayed at the lack of education in the simple things that we take for granted, and we’re slowly starting to realise it’s a huge world out there and we’re happy to help.”
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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.
