Rogue manager signs timbermen for 2 hours
Earlier today, Tempest announced the signing of timbermen in what seemed to a routine announcement for the small American organization. However, after the announce tweet below was live for around two hours, Tempest deleted the tweet while promising "an official statement regarding the teams future with the organization." While announcement misfires happen all the time in esports, especially at this level, sources close to the situation have told Dust2.us that the circumstances of timbermen's signing are far more frenetic and farcical.
According to these sources, timbermen's signing was negotiated by Tempest's CS:GO manager, who allegedly acted without the knowledge of the organization's owners. This is backed up by one of the organization's owners, Rob, alleging himself and most of the owners were unaware timbermen were even being talked to.
This break of protocol and lack of communication, while bad, is greatly magnified by the fact that timbermen are a fairly controversial team in the scene. For context, the core of the squad have been banned multiple times over the years for offensive, racist, and transphobic comments.
While the players have served their bans and have had no incidents in the time since, it is understandable why organizations would be reluctant to sign a squad with all the added baggage that comes with their past mistakes. As such, it is even more understandable why Tempest's owners would go into panic station when the signing of a controversial team is dropped on them without any forewarning.
The consequences of the rogue manager's actions have already seen to have an impact on the organization's operations. Kal, a player for the organization's VALORANT team, announced that he "would never support such a team" and his future with Tempest is in question as a result.
Dust2.us attempted to reach out to Tempest for comment ahead of their statement but did not hear back at the time of publication.
Update: Within minutes of publishing this article, Tempest responded to Dust2.us' request for comment, stating:
None of this was really approved by any of the three owners. To give context, one of our owners is moving, the other is working on a boat, and the last one just got out of the hospital, where as the one in the hospital was told he never approved it or knew what really was going on. So there is a bunch of miscommunication/no communication going on really, there is no excuse for this, and it's bringing negative attention to both the org and the players, where as we apologize to those players that this process is causing some issues that have been unseen. We never want to aim for this, this is just what seemed to happen this time in this current situation.
Update 2: Tempest have posted a statement apologizing for the turmoil while announcing that they will not be signing timbermen in the end.
