League of Legends manager responds to finance management attack

Yesterday, we heard from one professional League of Legends player, about how he felt that managers were one of the biggest problems with Esports teams, especially his old one, MRN, which had been plagued by a manager that was unscrupulous with his money. That manager, Phan has now expressed his own thoughts on his blog, explaining his side of the story.

If you take what he says at face value, it does sound like Phan's biggest crime wasn't extorting his players, but more being a poor manager. His mismanagement of expense funds and lacklustre accounting left the location of a lot of money up in their air, with only his word that he spent it on rent to go by. There's also the question of where a certain portion of the Riot paid $25,000 team salary (paid after individual $12,500 salaries to each player) which was meant to go to DJ Wheat, the team's business manager, but ended up being used for “expenses.”

A lot of what he says however, seems like a lesson to other teams as well as anyone in their early adult years dealing with money and housing. Instead of renting two apartments as team MRN initially planned, the group ended up renting a house by the beach for much more than was necessary. When the team was relegated and their money dried up, they were left in a hole because they had been living month to month.

A given example of Phan's accounting. The details – or lack thereof – are telling.

At least if all of this had been recoded and written down – the types of thing you would expect a manager to handle, or at least use the skills of an accountant – then it would be far easier to explain away, but as it stands, you can either take Phan's word for it or think of him as far more nefarious than he makes out. Either way, your evidence is the same.

Riot has pledged to help the team try and recover some of the money, or at least figure out where it went, which is extremely generous considering it is far from obligated to do so.

There seems to be quite a bit of bad blood between the original complainer, Glinsman and the manager, Phan, with claims of more bickering. However, Phan has posted screengrabs of texts from other team members who seem less than aggressive towards him – though whether they'll be keen to see private communication posted online is anyone's guess.

KitGuru Says: Whether you're in a professional esports team, or just an average dude setting up shop for the first time, take it steady for a while. It's exciting to go out and buy things and get yourself set up nice, but give yourself some breathing room, there will be expenses you've forgotten about and it sucks when those bite you in the ass.

[Thanks PCGamesN]

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