Update: Denial not-CEO steps down amid allegations of withheld payments
In the wake of allegations that the new Denial ownership has followed the time-honored tradition of the previous Denial ownership to not pay players, Zachary "Xac" Smith stepped down yesterday with immediate effect. Following his departure, Jerry Nguyen, the organization's former Strategic Advisor, has been put in charge of day-to-day operations of Denial.
The recent saga began when French Call of Duty player Nathan “Natshay” Dupuis posted a TwitLonger, alleging that the Denial organization owes each player $15,000 along with various bonuses for their performance in the Call of Duty World League.
Following this, Zachary Smith posted a statement on his Twitter disputing Natshay's allegations:
I’ve been getting tagged a lot in a post in regard to Nathan and his false allegations. I’ll be speaking with my team internally to figure out this following matter.
Further complicating matters is an article from Kevin Hitt over at Upcomer which states that although an earlier contract laid out Natshay and his fellow player's salaries, due to complications relating to Natshay's visa status, a new contract was signed on February 16th, claiming that “player[s] shall receive a salary to be negotiated in good faith between parties, per a month, to be paid on the 10th day of the month by Company.”
In April, Denial released Natshay, which means the player never got his P1 visa and therefore "Denial cannot legally pay Natshay". This means that although Natshay is seemingly contractually entitled to some form of salary, he will have to go to court to see any of that money.
Additionally, French esports organization Overtime have also claimed in a Twitlonger of their own that Denial owe the organizations "tens of thousands of euros" that were promised when the organization sold the team and the CWL slot to Denial.
As of now, no allegations have come forward from Denial's South American CS:GO team that participated in ESL Pro League. However, Dust2.us has been informed that the players have been reimbursed for costs related to their brief LAN attendance and visas.
Update: Following the publication of this article, Dust2.us has learned that although initially it appeared that Denial were working to repay the CS:GO team the money they were owed under previous CEO Robby Ringnalda, multiple players have allegedly not received all or some of the money they were promised.
David "Xp3" Garrido, David "Toy" Han, and Michael "dapr" Gulino allegedly never received any of the money new owner Zachary Smith promised them, with Dylan "RIKO" Sabin-Arnce only being given a portion of what he was owed. Additionally, multiple players were allegedly told by Zachary Smith that he did not need to pay them as he had no legal obligation to do so, seemingly contradicting multiple previous statements.
