Estral Esports Disqualified from All Competitions Following Match-Throwing

Estral Esports spent 2020 as the pride of Mexico with the team winning both Regional Majors, and the regional title to finish a single place shy of a Six Invitational invite. Following this, Estral beat INTZ at the SI qualifiers before falling in the grand-final against FURIA, meaning the team missed out on the Six Invitational 2021 by a single spot yet again.

This impressive performance which drew attention from around the world has now been tainted as it comes to light that the Estral organization forced their players to throw a match and lie to admins leading the org to be disqualified from all R6 tournaments permanently.

By inciting the players to “throw the match” with the effect of affecting another organization negatively and deceiving the league operators... the official determination is to permanently ban the participation of Estral Esports... in any competition of the Rainbow Six Circuit in any capacity.

This all started following a lost match on October 18th against last-placed Infinity Esports, 1-7, 2-7, after an otherwise undefeated year. This result was very clearly questioned by viewers, casters, and admins due to both the result itself and certain "plays" made during the match:

This loss gave Infinity three points which pushed them ahead of both Pixel Esports and MeT pushing the latter team -- which included the Americans of DotDash and wrath -- into the relegation zone. As well as this, this saved Infinity Esports from relegation with Infinity being many of the Estral player's previous organization.

At the time an investigation went ahead which led Fungi (the player in the clip above) to be suspended for three games for throwing which included the Mexican Championship Finals which Estral won even with their coach subbed in. 

Now, however, while investigating a separate violation, Ubisoft found out that Estral has not only told the players to throw the game but then had "used management authority to prevent the players and staff from disclosing information about a situation" to Ubisoft. 

Due to this break of the Code of Conduct and Global Rulebook, Estral has had their Mexican Championship license revoked and has been banned from all future R6S tournaments.

Due to contract issues, we cannot comment on anything yet.
After this time, we will publish our version and how things arose.

Concerning the players, Toski has been banned from competing for nine months due to a poaching violation. This makes him the second player to fall foul of this rule after the ex-Timbers player of Re4per was banned in January. Poaching rules simply state that all transfer negotiations must occur between license owners and can be seen in full below:

As for the other players and staff, they have each been issued with a competitive warning meaning any future offense will be issued with a sanction or fine. Most of the players have found a new home anyway with SkMzY and GOKU already having been confirmed as a part of the new Atheris lineup alongside MKing and Novys.

This makes Estral the second organization to have its license revoked this year after Nora-Rengo and the first to be publicly and permanently banned from all tournaments. Considering their impact on the global scene in bringing the Mexican scene a lot of respect and attention, this is a major blow for the region as a whole.

It is currently unknown whether the MXC 2021 Season will kick-off with just seven teams or whether they will be replaced ahead of its start in just 11 days' time. Currently, there are just three confirmed teams out of the planned eight, however, with the transfer window closed, announcements are likely to come in the coming days:

• Atheris Esports -- SkMzY, Novys, Guicho, Navy, MKing, Royz, and GOKU (two coaches)
• MeT -- Ravz, Hydre, Wrath, DotDash, Lethal, Dfult, and Luk3 (coach)
• OverKnight -- Kcire, Draab, Iarzt, Livexe, Atlas, and Xyro (coach)