LoL professional switches to the wrong team, is now being sued by his agency

LoL pro Steven “Hans Sama” Liv is being sued by a French agency that represented him on contracts in 2021. The agency is said to have negotiated a contract with an American team, but Hans Sama then switched to another. This is supposed to be a breach of contract.

What’s going on there? Hans Sama is a French LoL player who played for Misftis from 2016 to 2019 and then for Team Rogue on the botlane from late 2019 to late 2021. At the end of 2021, however, he was aiming for a move to America.

• During contract negotiations, the player was represented by the French agency Athletes Representation & Consulting (ARC). His contract there ran until the end of 2021 and would even have been automatically extended for 2022 if neither party had terminated it.
• ARC negotiated a contract with the American team Cloud9 in the interests of their player at the end of 2021. European team Rogue also met with Cloud9 to discuss the transfer fee.
• But Hans Sama surprisingly switched to Team Liquid and even let another agency negotiate this contract.
• ARC sees this as a breach of contract and is now suing how The Jacob Wolf Report reported. Although they gave no details, but confirmed the lawsuit. Hans Sama and the new agency did not comment.

It is common for agencies to negotiate contracts with well-known athletes. This practice has also arrived in e-sports, as have the transfer fees. A sum of around 4.3 million euros was paid for the player Perkz in 2020 – the previous official record in LoL.

ARC got no commission, Rogue even accepted lower fees

What else is in the report? Hans Sama is said to have already trained with Cloud9 in the off-season at the end of 2021. So everything looked like the botlaner would move there – especially after the talks between the two teams and the agreement on a transfer fee.

Hans Sama’s agency would have contractually received a 5% commission for the change.

However, the final contract with Team Liquid was not negotiated by ARC, but by another agency called Proxy – although Hans Sama was still contractually bound. In addition, ARC should not have received any commission for the change.

The LoL professional is said to have expressed an urgent desire to move to Team Liquid, so Rogue even accepted a lower transfer fee.

Hans Sama returns to Europe, Team Liquid only relies on Koreans

How was the year in America? Not so good. Actually, Team Liquid was considered something of a super team. With Bwipo, Bjergsen and Hans Sama, three strong professionals were brought in who were also successful in Europe. The purchase of these three is said to have cost up to $7 million.

However, Team Liquid only finished 3rd in the regular Summer Split and also failed to qualify for Worlds in the Summer Playoffs. They lost first to 100 Thieves and later to Evil Geniuses 3-2 each. The team disintegrated.

According to the latest reports, Hans Sama is now set to return to Europe. A move to G2 Esports is in the pipeline (via Twitter).

Team Liquid is also completely reorganizing itself. All of the European stars are gone and it’s all Korean players including Summit (FunPlus Phoenix) and Pyosik from DRX, who won the Worlds with the 2022 team.