Team accused of not fielding enough UK players 'under investigation' by Multiplay

Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 06/06/2017

UPDATE (11pm):
After this article was published, Laatch admitted in a tweet his team did not field the required number of UK players.

I take the full response for “here for fun” and that we didn’t show up with atleast 3 brittish players.

— Laatch (@LaatchLoL) June 6, 2017

Laatch admitted he played in the qualifiers, and added: “I would like to apologize to the orgs that we beat in the qualifier.”
Now we wait to see what UK Masters’ response is.
 
Original article (published 10:48pm):
A League of Legends team who took part in this week’s UK Masters qualifiers have been accused of not fielding enough UK players.
UK Masters rules currently state that ‘at least three players must be UK residents in-game at all times’.
The team in question, known as ‘here for fun’, fielded the following roster:

• down syndrome ad
• ralph 69
• merlinthewiz
• remexxx v2
• nillenalley

UK top-laner Raikouu wrote this on Twitter, claiming the team didn’t field any UK players:

@DigWarGG @MannimalGG ahhh the team you lost to didn’t even have UK players thats cool @UKMasters 🙂

— Raikouu (@Raikouu_EUW) June 6, 2017

Digital Warfare were one of the teams knocked out by ‘here for fun’ this evening, and obviously weren’t happy about the potential rule break.
 

“I am aware and the matter is under investigation, I currently don’t have a comment beyond that.”
Jon Kelly, UK Masters

 
Digital Warfare Artemis manager Sam Newbould told Esports News UK: “We played ‘here for fun’ and lost the game to later find out through contacts in the community that the team wasn’t abiding the rules.
“A formal complaint was made to UK Masters tournament staff and nothing has been done – we think the team should have been removed from the tournament.
“It was known across the community that the ‘just for fun’ team was in fact Laatch’s.”

did not play for real

— Laatch (@LaatchLoL) June 5, 2017

UK Masters tournament organiser Multiplay say the matter is currently under investigation.
Jon Kelly, esports league operator for UK Masters, told Esports News UK: “I am aware and the matter is under investigation, I currently don’t have a comment beyond that.”
ENUK understands that Multiplay does have systems in place to confirm the residency of teams.

Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025. 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 also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.

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