Riot Games permanently bans TSM Coach Peter Zhang

It definitely has been a rough year for TSM filled by bad results, completely unexpected roster changes, and serious allegations towards their CEO. But the bad news doesn’t stop. This time, the now former coach/staff member Peter Zhang has been permanently banned from all official League of Legends esports events, as announced by Riot Games.

Not too long ago, on platforms such as Reddit and Twitter, Peter Zhang received quite a few accusations of moving money from players’ paychecks before being fired from his staff position in TSM around March. This caused TSM to establish an internal investigation of Zhang which finally confirmed this information.

Via Riot Games statement:

“Peter Zhang violated the LCS Rule Set as well as the LCS Eligibility and Release Agreement by diverting portions of player salaries to accounts belonging to Peter Zhang and his associates, by misleading and failing to fully compensate a former TSM player for the sale of the player’s car, and by soliciting loans from TSM players and staff”

Supposedly, from December 2021 to February 2022, Zhang took an average total of $250,000, which is not a small amount of money at all, from just two players within the organization, who after the said process were set to receive a “significant portion of their salaries through a third party entity in China,” according to the official investigation’s findings. 

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The identity of the players in question has remained private, however a previous report mentioned the possibility that one player involved in this process was former TSM support Yursan.

But it wasn’t only that. On top of diverting salaries, Zhang was also accused of having asked for money from a total of eight TSM players and staff members, according to Riot Games. When these actions of asking for money from players became known to the organization, Zhang was immediately fired from his position within the team the same day.

“TSM became aware of Peter Zhang’s solicitation on March 18, 2022 and took immediate action to reverse pending wire transfers, preventing Peter Zhang from receiving at least $20,000 more in loans” “To date, approximately $4,500 remains unpaid to the players who loaned Peter Zhang money”, Riot Games stated.

One of the first accusations set against Zhang came earlier this year when he was accused of accepting to sell a car on behalf of previous TSM support SwordArt without ever giving back the amount directly to him, according to a report from Richard Lewis. 

Zhang sold the car for a total of $80,000, currently he has only returned $35,000 to SwordArt, while the other $45,000 remains as not paid to the owner, according to Riot Game’s investigation.

Riot Games gave Zhang the possibility of submitting a statement to defend himself from these accusations, which apparently he did, however the statement did not absolutely clear him of any of the actions in question.
Via Riot Games statement:

“Zhang failed to provide any compelling evidence refuting the accuracy of the finds of the report submitted by TSM’s retained third-party law firm”.In regards to the result of the case, Zhang has been permanently banned from participating in official League of Legends esports events. He is now exiled from participating with any team involved in official leagues or events in the entire world. If you are interested in League of Legends betting then make sure to stay tuned as we are covering all the news related to its esports scene.