UK esports organisation Lionscreed have lost their spot in Division 1 of the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the esports circuit for teams in the UK, Ireland and Nordics.
NLC organisers said the org were removed due to ‘not meeting their financial obligations towards players and staff for an extended period in spring’ and for ‘failing to complete a roster for the Summer Split’.
Lionscreed will be replaced by the winners of NLC Division 2 – BlueWhites.
The news comes after a tumultuous time for Lionscreed on social media over the past week, with South Korean former LoL coach Eunko publicly accusing them of not paying players.
He also shared private direct messages between himself and Lionscreed team manager Robinho. These show messages from Robinho asking Eunko to post a tweet saying he lied [about the payment situation] in order for Tempt, one of Lionscreed’s former players, to receive payment. Eunko declined.
Robinho said this request came from the founder and CEO of Lionscreed, Abdiqani Ahmed (aka Abdi).
Eunko has since accused both Robinho and Abdi of being ‘scammers’.
Sheep Esports also reported that Robinho paid several team members out of his own pocket.
Esports News UK understands that players were signed to Lionscreed for the NLC Spring 2024 Division 1 season from late January to late March, with the option to extend for the EMEA Masters Spring 2024 (which Lionscreed qualified for).
We were told by sources that all players had been paid except for Yohan and Tempt, who have since left Lionscreed and are still awaiting payments for April. However, we were unable to obtain irrefutable proof of this.
In terms of the Lionscreed Lionesses women’s team, we understand a couple of players were affected by the situation, with one stopping scrimming in order to prioritise university. Robinho had also paid some of his own money to have jungler Hao come to the UK to meet the team on one occasion, and had planned to do so to get the team together again, echoing Sheep Esports’ report that he had paid some Div 1 team members owed money out of his own pocket.
UKEL bans Lionscreed
Update: The UK Esports League (UKEL), the UK and Ireland national League of Legends league, a tier below the NLC, has also banned Lionscreed.
On June 22nd 2024, the UKEL published a post saying Lionscreed have been banned from competing in all UKEL-operated tournaments for a year and a half (until the end of 2025).
And Lionscreed CEO Abdi has been banned from the UKEL for three and a half years, until the end of 2027.
The Lionscreed Academy and Lionesses team spots in the UKEL will now by owned by the players for the Summer and Autumn seasons.
Others complain to Esports News UK about not being paid by Lionscreed
There is more to the situation. Two sources recently reached out to Esports News UK saying they had not been paid what they were owed by Lionscreed for video editing/creative work.
One, was for work completed in January this year by Brahim Touhami, and the other, for six invoices filed by Luke (lucocreates) in February, March, April, May, June and July 2023, meaning they have been waiting well over a year to be paid for some of their work.
After this article was published, UK League personality Foxdrop, who was at one point a content creator for Lionscreed, told us he was owed money too.
Esports News UK understands he’s owed a few thousand pounds, as well as additional expenses, and that he’s been waiting eight months to get paid.
Brahim Touhami, the video editor, told Esports News UK: “Abdi reached out to me and another 3D generalist friend [a third person who doesn’t want to be mentioned], and we both got scammed on a €2,000 gig. The video is published on the Lionscreed Twitter but we didn’t get paid for it.
“Abdi was reaching out to us every four days just to delay the payments. After five months he still didn’t pay. I would definitely consider this as a straight up scam.”
Brahim Touhami, video editor
“I would always do invoices 50% [upfront and 50% after completing work] with clients, but I didn’t because I dealt with Abdi before, and he paid me before too. So it’s so weird that he decided to hire me and my friend and scam us.”
Some of the money owed to Luke (lucocreates) is technically owed by WellPlayed Labs, a separate company set up by Abdi around late 2022/early 2023.
Luke (lucocreates) said: “In the last month of 2022, my good friend Darrel told me about an exciting opportunity at WellPlayed Labs, a new multidisciplinary creative studio under the Lionscreed brand.
“The opportunity led me to work with existing brands and upcoming startups in all fields, and no two days were the same.
“Everything was going well until it came to being paid. Before taking on the position, we agreed on a monthly salary, but fast forward to ~420 days after the first invoice due date and five subsequent invoices sent, each remaining unpaid.”
Luke (lucocreates)
“It’s frustrating but also tiring as a contractor, especially after proposing different solutions to try and find an answer that worked for both parties.”
Esports News UK understands Abdi plans to pay everyone who is owed. He previously told us in an interview from January 2024 about past Lionscreed controversies he was ‘in the middle of a buyback process of shares [in Lionscreed]’.
Ultimately, though, payments are still owed.
Abdi and Robinho have since deactivated their Twitter accounts, and declined to provide any on-the-record comment to Esports News UK for this article.
It’s not clear whether Lionscreed will be allowed to compete in another division of the NLC at this time.
Some took to Twitter to react to the news, calling for Lionscreed to have their Spring 2024 NLC Div 1 win revoked.
Another source told Esports News UK anonymously: “I do wonder how long I’ll stick around [in the NLC]. Things like the Lionscreed situation really put me off.
”I tried so hard to warn the tournament organisers just to get ignored, and all it’s done is further damage the league that I’ve put a LOT of money into, alongside many other things that have damaged it of course.
“It always seems like these bad actors are better off for it as well. I know two other orgs in the NLC right now that have skeletons [in their closet], and not necessarily financial ones, that will come out eventually.”
The news also comes as teams are starting to announce their NLC Division 1 Summer 2024 rosters.
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.
