Divine respond to zander's allegations of non-payment
After parting ways with Divine on November 3rd, Alexander "zander" Diaz took to Twitter last Sunday to raise allegations against the organization warning other teams not to sign with Divine. In the tweet he claimed that the team were not paid for their final month with the organization and that Divine attempted to sell the team to another organization.
Following zander's allegations against Divine, the team's Esports Director, Eric "Herc" Sousa, reached out to Dust2.us with a lengthy statement to give the organization's account of what happened with the team.
According to Herc, Divine had fulfilled its contractual obligations to the team up to October, paying the players their salaries for the first two months of their contract. Due to their contracts being terminated on November 3rd, he claims the organization was not obligated to pay for the November portion of the team’s salary as the month had just started.
Additionally, Herc wrote in a message to the players that though they had "earned... a much higher salary", it could not be with the Divine "organization due to our current budget."
As a result, Divine released the players ahead of the end of their contracts, stating the decision was in order to the help team find a new organization without having to deal with a buyout.
As for the allegation that Divine attempted to sell the roster, Herc admits that "we tried to sell the team" after they realized they could no longer support the roster. Herc states that he contacted "eight different organizations that he thought may be interested" however they rejected taking on the team at the salary the team were interested in.
Overall, Herc says he doesn't understand why zander attacked Divine on Twitter as he was unaware the team had any issues with the organization. Additionally, he said that after receiving another source of funding, Divine attempted to re-sign Rugratz at a better rate however zander rejected the offer, posting the tweet against Divine a few hours later.
Dust2.us reached out to zander to follow-up regarding Herc's claims, with zander saying that their release from Divine on November 3rd was completely unexpected, and that the team had no idea Divine was unable to continue paying the team or planning on releasing the roster.
Also, zander said that he was skeptical Divine's later offer was realistic as he doubted they could pay for higher salaries. Regardless even if they could pay, trust was eroded between the two parties as Divine had not been upfront at all about dropping the roster, leading to zander rejecting the offer.
Rugratz have since signed with Moscow Five, and will be representing the roster next month at ESEA MDL Season 32 Global Challenge.
