Murad Aliyev, already a former leader Cyber anji, said on his VKontakte page that the project is being closed. Also on his Twitter, he added that you need to forget about working in this club, like a nightmare.
It is clear from Murad's statements that the organization was not going to pay salaries to the players and organize a bootcamp, since they were not satisfied with the results of the squad. Sami Anji have not given any comments on this yet.
Hello, I'm not a blogging pro, but I need to shed some light on the Anji situation.
When we came to this FC with our project, we asked for a year of time and a certain amount of funding to achieve results. We came to an agreement with the management and got down to work.
The squad was assembled and contracts were concluded with the players according to which the guys were to receive a salary on the 10th day of each month.
After the first month of work (March), the only player with a contract at that time received a salary (that is, in April), everything was fine, but then the most interesting thing began.
May 10 came and the players' salaries were not received, after which I began to ask the management about the reasons for the delay in the issuance of salaries, to which they told me that tomorrow they would give everything back. We were fed "breakfasts" until the beginning of June, explaining this by the end football season, delays in accounting, etc. All this was very annoying, because the qualifications for TI 7 were on the nose and the guys needed a bootcamp for which, accordingly, I also asked for money.
In the end, somewhere in early June, we managed to achieve a spontaneous meeting with the management, at which they explained to us the real reason for the delay - unsatisfactory results and that the club had only "costs" for this project, it turns out interesting, right? This is despite the fact that we initially asked for a year of time, but only 3 months passed and the salary was issued only once (!) Once to one player.
After that, during this meeting, as it seemed to us at that time, we managed to convince the management to give time until the end of June (qualification for TI 7) and give the players salaries and money for the bootcamp. We were assured that the money would be the next day and we immediately informed one of the players who needed it the most.
There was no money the next day, you guessed it. To prevent the club from falling in the eyes of this player, I transferred his salary from my personal money, being sure that Anji would be given the money.
In the following days, my calls and messages to the management were ignored. Unfortunately, the guys were left without a bootcamp and I am very sorry for them, I am sure that they would perform much better if they were together.
We, along with the players, were simply spit on and left in this position.
On this note, the Cyber Anji project is being closed.
Goodbye.
On the night of March 19-20, the guide football club Anji announced a full-fledged roster of. The new five turned out to be quite predictable, despite all the assurances that cybersportsmen are on probation. Whether it still lasts is not specified. Dota CIS legend Alexander "XBOCT" Dashkevich was joined by players from Comanche and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. We will tell you who became part of Cyber Anji.
Alexander "XBOCT" Dashkevich
Role: carry (team captain)
Signature Heroes: Lifestealer, Gyrocopter, Juggernaut
The famous "four", winner of the first The International and vice-champion at the next two tournaments. Dashkevich, together with Natus Vincere, set a record that no one has broken so far - for three years in a row he reached the TI final.
After leaving Na'Vi in 2015, Dashkevich joined Team Empire. The Imperials helped XBOCT end their unbeaten streak since November 2014 by winning the first season of the Game Show Global eSports Cup. However, the team did not need the services of a Ukrainian esportsman for a long time. Dashkevich tried to play for Fantastic Five and Team Spirit, but he never managed to achieve serious results. He ended up taking a break from playing professionally.
In 2015 and 2016, XBOCT was repeatedly invited to work at RuHub studio as an analyst during major tournaments in.
"The people who invited me to" Anji "were my fans"
Alexander "XBOCT" Dashkevich - about the attitude of the football club to e-sports, the new players of the team and the behavior of Ilya "Lil" Ilyuk.
Igor "iLTW" Filatov
Role: mid
Signature Heroes: Juggernaut, Shadow Fiend, Invoker
Igor Filatov is predicted to have a great future. The seventeen-year-old cybersportsman is already showing a high-quality game and is competing with the most experienced midmen of the CIS and Europe. The cybersportsman is not doing everything yet, but great hopes are pinned on him. All thanks to the qualification, where Comanche, for which he has been competing since July 2016, had a chance to leave the group. The team beat Team Spirit, F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Na'Vi and other qualifiers. However, in play-off The "Indians" met again with the "born to win". The match ended with the victory of Na'Vi with a score of 1: 0.
Maxim "yoky-" Kim
Role: offlane
Signature Heroes: Tidehunter, Earthshaker, Ax
During his career, Maxim Kim has played in what roles: offlane, mid, carry. However, their top scores the esportsman showed off in the off lane for Team Empire. No matter how he runs from her, the player still returns to this position. After leaving the Imperials, Kim did not manage to shine in other teams.
“I liked him for a long time, when I was still playing offlane in Team Empire. Then Yoky wanted to play in a different position, tried in different teams in the middle lane and in the carry. He did it a little worse than in the main role, apparently, he needed more time for training. When I asked Yoky if he wanted to play hard again, he agreed. On the offlane, Maksim was doing well, so I think he is an excellent candidate, ”Alexander Dashkevich told about Kim.
Evgeniy "Chuvash" Makarov
Role: support player
Signature Heroes: Earth Spirit, Kunkka, Ogre Magi
Mikhail "Misha" Agatov
Role: support player
Signature Heroes: Oracle, Io, Rubick
A bunch of supports that Comanche lost. However, Agatov and Makarov have not played together all the time since the team was founded. In November 2016, Chuvash started playing for Effect, but returned two months later.
Agatov joined the team with Igor Filatov. Together they played for Enso, in which they won prizes in amateur tournaments.
“These guys have been performing as three for a long time. And all three of them expressed a desire to play with me. There is no longer the need to look for someone else, because the guys have already played, they know what they want from each other. And since they suit each other, it means that they can do something. I very often came across them in rating games, so we already have some communication experience. It is evident that these guys know how and want to play. When I first talked to them, I was surprised at their rationality at the age of 18-19. There is a sense in their words, there is no youthful stupidity, they try, they say smart things. In principle, this is all that is needed, ”said captain Cyber Anji.
The line-up has already been announced for the second stage of the 2017 Russian Cup. According to Alexander Dashkevich, the team's task now is to participate in the maximum number of tournaments. And if you manage to get into the closed qualifier of The International and qualify for the tournament, it will be very good.
For the post, he left the following words “The Cyber Anji project is closed. You have to forget working in this club like a nightmare. " and asked for this to be considered an official statement.
It all started when we came to FC with our own project, on which we needed about a year of time and a certain amount of finance. We discussed everything with the management, they agreed, then we started work. A good line-up was assembled, all contracts with the players were signed, where the guys should receive a salary on the 10th of every month.
When March ended (the first end of work), only one player with a contract received a salary, it would seem okay, but then the interesting began .. On May 10, not a single player of the team receives a salary, after I started writing questions to the management about this matter to find out the reasons ... They did not give an exact answer, but only fed them "breakfasts" until June, saying that these were delays in the accounting department, as it is always at the end of the football season. When it already started to be very annoying, especially realizing that soon the qualifiers for TI7 and everyone needs a bootcamp, for which I, of course, asked for money.
I managed to get a meeting with the management at the beginning of June at which they told the real reason for the delay in finances - the unsatisfied results of the cyber team, and this project only causes "costs" and does not bring profit. Strange, isn't it? Since we asked for time - one year to play and raise the level, and what are the costs? If one player was paid a salary once, the rest did not.
At the same meeting, we were able to persuade the management to give us time until the end of June (qualifications for TI7), pay salaries and give money for the bootcamp. We were all assured that the money would be the next day, we told about this to the player who at that moment needed money the most.
There was no money the next day, therefore, so that the club would not fall in the eyes of this player, I had to pay him a salary from my personal money, saying that Anji would be given the money to me. However, all my messages and calls were ignored by the club management. Therefore, the guys were left without a bootcamp, which I am very sorry for them, as I understand that they could perform much better if they were together.
We, along with the players, were simply spit on and left in this position.
On this note, the Cyber Anji project is being closed.
Goodbye.
I would like to remind you that the Cyber Anji team was created at the beginning of March, which included the legendary TAIL. But since the team could not find their game, therefore, they constantly changed the roster, thereby being drawn only into new scandals related to player transfers. At the qualifiers for The International, Cyber Anji finished eighth in the group with a score of 3-6.
Former Dota 2 Cyber Anji roster:
- Evgeny ‘Chuvash’ Makarov
- Maxim ‘yoky’ Kim
- Alexander ‘NoFear’ Churochkin
- Yaroslav 'Pikachu' Vasilenko
- Vadim 'Sedoy' Musorin
Increasingly, we hear how this or that football club concludes contracts with players in FIFA - such news in 2017 will hardly surprise anyone. But hardly anyone could have imagined that Anji would become the first Russian club with its own Dota 2 team.
Why do football clubs need Dota?
A Dota team is a profitable investment not only for the management of football clubs. According to the international analytical company Newzoo, by 2020 the total revenue in e-sports will grow to $ 1.5 billion. Football clubs have sufficient administrative resources to maintain a Dota team. At the same time, the costs of a DotA squad cannot be compared with the costs of a football team - the salaries of top players in DotA are measured in tens of thousands of dollars, not millions, and most of their income is prize money. Ideal for a club: we spend a little - we get a lot.
The prize money in Dota is unprecedented and continues to grow - the prize pool of last year's The International championship exceeded $ 20 million. Add money from new sponsors who don't want to play football (computer manufacturers, game platforms, cyberbookmakers) and you will understand why a Dota team is a great investment that, with due diligence, can pay off very quickly.
Then why don't most clubs still have a Dota team?
Despite its growing popularity, DotA has not become more affordable. Football clubs do not have specialists who can lead a Dota roster to success. It is not for nothing that the head of one of the best American organizations, Evil Geniuses, is its former player, 25-year-old Peter Daguerre. It's hard for outside experts to infiltrate esports. The exception is Roman Dvoryankin from Virtus.pro, who was the marketing director for hockey Spartak. But there are very few such examples. Dota as a business is incomprehensible to the heads of football clubs, they do not understand a lot about the structure of e-sports tournaments, the peculiarities of scouting, etc. Investing in such a scenario is like jumping from a bungee on a moonless night.
How did Anji solve this problem?
One might say brilliant. They invited a veteran of the Dota scene - Alexander "TAIL" Dashkevich. At the stage of the inception of Dota as an esports, he became the world champion and won everything he could as part of the Na'Vi team. He knows the inner workings of DotA like no other. Alexander was signed as a player, but his best days in this capacity are behind him. In fact, Anji needs Alexander in order to draw attention to the project from the very start and organize the work of the club's new department. According to the TAIL itself, a separate division of young guys who have no experience is engaged in cybersport at Anji. Thus, Anji shot two birds with one stone - they took a player with millions of fans around the world, and at the same time a manager who will help to organize the work of the esports division.
Where did Anji take the rest of the players?
Good players are perhaps the most important investment in Dota. There is no coaching team phenomenon in Dota; other things being equal, the team with the best performers will win here. The problem is that there is an acute shortage of high-level free players in our region. Anji coped with this too, taking three players from the Comache organization, essentially breaking up the team.
The community reacted sharply to the news. No one negotiated with Comanche, and the management did not receive any money for the players. It turned out that the guys had no contracts, so Anji did not even communicate with the organization. On the day of the transfer of the trio to Anji, Comanche was scheduled to play.
Esports in Russia is quite young, and not everything in it happens according to the strict laws of business. Organizations try not to spit in the well and to thank the side affected by scouting, even if the players did not have normal contracts. A kind of e-sports etiquette that Anji neglected. On the other hand, no one interfered with the Comanche management from concluding normal contracts with the players. Anji acted on the basis of football principles, where a free agent is a free agent. One way or another, I had to spit into the well.
What's the bottom line?
The Anji team took part in the qualifiers for the eSports Cup of Russia, was able to defeat the little-known Newday, but lost without a chance to Team Empire, which is now in the top 4 CIS teams, and left the tournament.
- We do not have any goals yet. We'll just play and see what happens. There are no tournaments yet, so we'll play in some small ones, - says team player Maxim "Yoky" Kim.
Alexander "TAIL" Dashkevich has completely different plans: he wants Anji to qualify for The International 7 - the main Dota championship.
A series of stories on television, tons of comments and reposts from loyal fans - all this was an accompaniment to the enchanting return to the competitive scene of the legendary carry of all times and peoples - Alexander "TAIL" Dashkevich. The news of the signing of the contract literally blew up the Internet, rallying not only Dota fans, but also fans of Makhachkala football team Anji.
Alexander at the time of signing the contract
This practice of financing cybersport teams by sports organizations is widespread in the West. An excellent example would be the signing by Danish football club Copenhagen of players in Counter strike: global offensive from Team Dignitas... And now, after a while, domestic marketers from Cyber anji finally got their bosses to recognize esports as a full-fledged competitive discipline worth investing in.
At the moment, the team has a permanent line-up and an impressive fan base. The team received several invitations to the upcoming tournaments and train daily. In this article, I propose to analyze the situation with the birth of esports Anji, assess their current position and try to predict the possible prospects for their existence.
So, the exact date of the creation of the esports division should be considered the moment of announcing the cooperation of the organization with TAIL`oh, the signing of the contract took place on March 4, 2017. On this day, without exception, all Dota news portals were full of provocative headlines about phenomenal cooperation. The news was supplemented by a short interview with Alexander, a beautiful video sequence and a plot on the TV channel "Match". No one argues that the event is far from standard, which means that it has the right to be widely disseminated in the media.
Thus, on the horizon, we had a future team with an eminent and serious organization behind it, which will undoubtedly provide the team with impressive financial support.
Interview with TAIL`om for the website of the football club Anji
What happened next? We all remember the drama that turned out to be for the "leader" and owner of an esports organization Comanche Denis Shapkarin by the loss of the current composition. TAIL, having secured his popularity and, as you know from an interview with the community manager of the Indians, more serious salaries, he actually "stole" three players Mikhail "Misha" Agatova, Igor "iLTW" Filatova and Evgenia "Chuvash" Makarov, which at that time were not legally secured by contracts for the organization. This led to a real tragedy for all fans. Comanche... After all, only two players remained under the protection of the "Indians" flags:. Ark and XaKoH... But in the end the services of the latter had to be abandoned. The management of the team, having moved away from the strongest stress, began to test the players who are currently free agents. By the way, the role of Evgeny Kochetkov is now being replaced by a more experienced Andrey "Mag" Chipenko, who remained outside the new line-up Vega squadron.
Talking about the lost lineup Comanche, it is impossible not to mention that by the time of participation in the regional qualifications The kiev major the guys have already formed their own unique fan base, which literally “from the inside” watched the life of the team through the blog “Path to eSports”. Denis Shapkarin, the owner of a young organization, created the most favorable conditions for his players for productive training and subsequent results. The team had everything to its credit, right down to a chic country house with a swimming pool. It would seem that, Comanche had everything that even the richest esports organization could boast of. As the hosts of the show noticed "WS Live" in issue with Vladimir "PGG" Anosov, Denis treated his charges "like a father to children." The "leader" approached each defeat with understanding, although, in fact, the team did not bring practically any money, and the investment in the guys did not pay off. And, at the same time, he spoiled the guys quite generously in case of victory. Simply put, such conditions can only be envied.
Fragment of the program "Path to eSports"
But, be that as it may, the guys exchanged the camp of the "Indians" in favor of vague prospects Cyber anji... By replacing stability and a friendly atmosphere with contracts, they significantly damaged their reputation, and made the audience even more empathized with the owner of the organization. In the light of recent events, it turned out that Denis was completely desperate in any future for his brainchild, and decided to transfer the rights to manage the organization into the hands of more ambitious and positive people. Obviously, he simply became disillusioned with the slippery Dota community. Creating his own team, he saw only glorious prospects in front of him, not thinking about possible twists of fate. The "leader" completely and completely trusted his charges. Fortunately, at the last moment he managed to change his mind and remained at the head of the collective so beloved by the public.
As it turned out, even warm and friendly relations, which are a rarity in modern competitive Dota, are not able to keep the roster. Fame and money are much more important to professional players. Do not forget that not a single, even the most eminent, team is immune from such situations.
What are just a few examples of the "theft" of players by management? Natus Vincere.
Let's go back to the chronology. After joining Alexander Dashkevich, the guys from Comanche the only thing left to complete was a hardliner, but he was not long in coming. For a little less than a week, there were rumors on Twitter about the imminent announcement of Maxim "Yoky" Kim as the last player CyberAnji, which, subsequently, were confirmed. You can also reproach the team in the collapse of the composition Friends, but in this case, the "Friends" were doing very badly, and of course, you cannot blame Maxim for leaving the team. Losing such a chance would be extremely stupid.
As a result, the following lineup saw the light Cyber anji : TAIL as a captain and player of the first position, a pair of supports in the face Misha and Chuvash... Excellent solo performers with a proven track record: Offlane Yoky having a reputation as a silent lone player who consistently plays in any situation; and in the mid iLTW which v1lat repeatedly noted as "the future of the CIS Dota".
The organization announced such a composition on March 19, 2017.
Since the announcement of the full-fledged squad, the newly-made team managed to play only a series of games in the open qualifiers for "Cup of Russia"... Among the huge number of games against non-pro teams, the team only had to face really strong opponents a couple of times. In the first case Cyber anji v bo3 confrontation without any chance lost Team empire, and in the second they could not cope with the onslaught of the team Effect... Of course, to compete with teams of such a high level, you need to have a sufficient amount of experience and work well with team play, which will take a lot of time.
But, just a couple of days ago, within the framework of the tournament Prodota Cup 17 the guys did not manage to defeat even the unknown Europeans from Spotnet... I don't think that players of this level can be satisfied with a 2-1 result in a game with frank no-names. The only achievement of the team for the entire period of joint play can be considered a victory over -Hive.
Now Cyber anji do not pose any threat to tier-2 teams, although great hopes were pinned on the roster. And we are not even talking about the hopes of the community or personal fans of Alexander, who were delighted with the news of the return of the idol to competitive Dota. The problem is in the currently stranded investment on the part of the organization. Having invested a lot of money, ruining its reputation for being filled with drama with the collapse Comanche, management of the e-sports division of the club Anji received nothing, except for the eminent composition. The results of the team leave much to be desired.
But was it worth making such a fuss about a squad that can only handle a pack of amateur stacks announced in the open qualifiers? After all, every time "TAIL and Co" stopped their procession through the qualifiers, reaching a more or less serious team. Was it worth it to literally "kill" promising Comanche confusing and stressing the management of the organization? The answer is obvious. But let's take a more positive look at the current situation.
The tweet was made on the day of the official departure of the players
I bet what most expected to see under the tag Cyber anji a strong and friendly team with talented performers, which will not be inferior to the top teams from the CIS, and will be on a par with
Team Spirit and Effect... And it may well work out. Having quite skillful players, charm and natural charisma TAIL`but, the guys are able to quickly establish a team game and make good competition to any team that has proven itself. Don't discount your team in advance. It is possible that a fruitful workout will bring long-awaited results. Ahead of Cyber anji Krasnodar tournament Guardians Of The Olympus where they have to face Effect, Team empire and Virtus.Pro... I think that, based on the results of this championship, the audience will have a fairly objective opinion about the first e-sports team that fell under the wing of a serious sports organization.
