Samsung European Championship has ended, but it’s not totally over yet. The officials have given a penalty to the winning team fnatic, due to breaking tournament behavior rules.

During Samsung European Championship, all players and teams had to wear the official Samsung European Championship shirts. All teams and players were informed of this, prior to tournament start. Even when the prize ceremony should take place, players and teams were forced to wear the official shirts. fnatic did wear their shirt, when they received their medals and the check.

fnatic in the official Samsung European Championship shirts.

But afterwards, when all winning teams and players were told to get on stage for a group picture, fnatic wore their own fnatic shirts. That’s against the rules and fnatic will get punished.



fnatic wearing their own fnatic shirts.

Here’s what WCG officials had to say on behalf of this matter:

We had some discussion, what to do. The possibilities would have been deducting of the prize money or a ban of the players for the next SEC. because the Event is already gone, this would have been the only Options for us. After a meeting with the Nordic WCG organizer which supports us completely, we came to the decision, that the Auto birth for fnatic for the national Final 2008 will be denied. That means, they have to fight through the normal qualification like any other team.

We want to make clear, that this won’t be the standard penalty for harming the rules. Because it was the first time that happened, and there has been no other company Logo in front of the shirts, we decided to go for this penalty this time. Next time, doesn’t matter who it will be, we will be talking about deduction of Prize money or banning the players again.

On behalf the actions WCG officials has taken, fnatic Managing Director Samuel Mathews states:

fnatic was informed that we had to wear our Samsung SEC jerseys on the prize ceremony when we were given our medals, which we did as obliged. After coming off the stage we were asked for an interview and as customary we took off our shirts to wear our fnatic jerseys. We were then all invited onto the stage in a rush for a group photo and so the guys straight out of their interview ran on the stage for the photo in their fnatic shirts. It was a mistake and we are sorry. However it was a very harmless one!

fnatic will still have the $12.500, medals and the title from Samsung European Championship, but missing out on a auto berth, sure is a big loss.

Source: WCG-Europe