LOL eSports
On Oct 27, we suspended Li “Vasilii” Wei Jun for audible threats of physical violence toward his girlfriend on his October 26 personal stream. After that, we conducted a deeper investigation into the incident:
We have questioned both Vasilii and his girlfriend separately, both remotely and in person. Both of them denied that Vasilii physically assaulted her, and there is no conclusive evidence to the contrary.
Although the investigation results don’t show proof that Vasilii physically assaulted his girlfriend, he made credible threats of physical violence and death threats toward a defenseless person in a private home that were intimidating enough for her to call the police. This is unacceptable.
We consider Vasilii’s behavior particularly egregious, beyond the worst kinds of extreme misconduct that we originally had in mind when we devised the Global Penalty Index. As specified in the GPI, we reserve the right to modify the Maximum Suspension Time due to aggravating circumstances. We consider the fact that threats of domestic abuse were made – and that they were made toward a defenseless person and in a private residence – to be aggravating factors. Whereas making these threats toward another another professional player on stage might warrant a 10 month suspension, physical intimidation and threats of domestic abuse should be punished much more harshly. Additionally, Vasilii has been punished for violent tendencies before – in an incident last year he showed physical aggression onstage, smashing a keyboard and physically intimidating a camera operator during a match.
Penalty
Vasilii will be receiving a 20 competitive month ban. Competitive months, per the GPI, are Jan-Oct. – as such, Vasilii will be banned effectively until the start of split 1 in January 2020.
Changes to the Global Penalty Index
When we looked closer at individual cases like this, we realized that the Extreme Misconduct category of the Global Penalty Index has a wide range of offenses that would fall under it. The current limitation of 10 months would not be appropriate for cases such as actual domestic abuse, which would warrant an Indefinite Suspension. To account for these kinds of cases and the wide range of offenses that could be considered extreme misconduct, effective immediately we are adjusting the Maximum Suspension Time for Extreme Misconduct to “Indefinite” to account for the most extreme acts of misconduct.