LGD suspends coach Xiao8 for 30 days pending match fixing investigation

Losing the grand finals of TI can be pain enough, but for PSG.LGD, the troubles have continued into the next season. As of today, Zhang "xiao8" Ning, was suspended by the organization pending an investigation for match-fixing and betting on matches played by the team. The allegations surfaced shortly after the team had lost in the grand finals of TI10 to Team Spirit.

It all started with allegations from xiao8's ex-wife, who made a post on Weibo, accusing him of betting on LGD games and cheating on her. These were later translated and posted to Reddit on r/dota2 and went viral. This evidence reportedly included screenshots of xiao8's betting history showing recent games he had bet on. Despite this, another reddit post was made that purported to debunk this evidence, saying that it was very possible that the screenshots were faked. As of right now, neither allegations have been confirmed.

These integirty allegations against Xiao8, one of the most decorated Dota 2 players in China are hurting LGD financially.

Regardless of the current truth of the allegations, LGD is taking the matter very seriously. They have released a statement and sent an email to Valve requesting audio finals from TI10 in order to investigate the matter thoroughly. In that same email, they revealed that xiao8 is being suspended for the time being, a period of 30 days.

The organization also confirmed that they will be contacting a neutral third party, independent of the club. This investigation will consist of both ex-law enforcement and current local police in China .

In their contact with Valve, a representative form LGD, Pan Fei noted that the team had completed their own internal investigation and had found no wrongdoing, and will accept Valve's judgment in the matter. They however requested audio files and images from the event to help with an investigation and suggested to Valve that they conduct their own investigation. Valve responded back saying that they were confident in the integrity of TI and that there was no wrongdoing by any of the players.

Despite this statement, LGD have still suspended xiao8. According to them, the allegations have ruined the brand reputation of the company, as well as the players' reputation. According to them it has even effected potential business opportunities. They hope that Valve stepping in will help to clear the names of their coach and players. They also hope that this will shed light on anything they might have missed in their initial investigation. The investigation is still on going. Neither LGD nor Valve have confirmed evidence of wrongdoing on the part of anyone on the team.

Despite the controversy surrounding TI and xiao8, the players on the team have lined up to support their coach. After the finals, players posted on Weibo, urging people not to blame xiao8 for the loss. Most notably, team captain Zhang "y`" Yiping released a statement explaining LGD's decision making process during the finals. Position 4 player Zhao "XinQ" Zixing, also had conversations with fans on Weibo explaining their decision making process.

The issue has a long way to go to be resolved. We likely won't know more until more information comes to light. Until then we await more statements from Valve, LGD, or any of the entities involved in investigating the issue. For updates on this story and others, keep up with esports.gg.

We would like to thank the translators on the reddit posts. We like to extend more thanks to our own Leon Arthur for his incalculable contributions to translating these documents and statements from players.