Windigo Gaming still hasn’t been paid for their win at the 2018 WESG Finals.
It was a true underdog story. Bulgaria-based Windigo Gaming was ranked 30th in the world of competitive CS:GO back in March of 2019. But despite this, they took down vastly higher-ranked teams to win the WESG 2018 Finals, defeating Polish team AGO in a 2-1 upset.
Top prize for winning the tournament was half a million dollars. And to this day, Windigo hasn’t seen a dime of it.
Seven months after that WESG win, Windigo ceased operations. It wasn’t for lack of players or for not winning tournaments–it was because they simply hadn’t been paid for the tournaments they did win. Chief among them was the 2018 WESG Finals.
Speaking to HTLV.org, Windigo co-founder Artur Yermolayev explained that the team was really counting on that $500,000.
“The players got a big confidence boost after the tournament, they understood that they were performing at a different level,” Mr. Yermolayev said. “In order to keep the squad, we had to increase their salaries. We were lacking cash flow, and the main reason for that was the [WESG] prize; it was the largest prize our organization had ever won. This would have been the cash flow that would have allowed us to stay in the game.”
Windigo’s other co-founder, Maksym Bednarskyi, tells the full story in a post to the CS:GO subreddit. He explains that several other tournaments had yet to pay either, but WESG was easily the largest prize still outstanding.
According to WESG, they had attempted to deposit the funds but they were returned to the depositing bank. At issue was the “bureaucratic nightmare” that came from trying to receive a deposit when the team and bank are registered in three different countries: Ukraine (where the corporation was registered), Bulgaria (where the team played), and China (where the team’s bank was located).
Further complicating matters was the Hong Kong protests late last year followed by the coronavirus pandemic that completely shut down China and much of the financial world.
Several months later, WESG and Windigo’s founders have gone back and forth via email with the latest development promising a deposit later in April thanks to a letter of commitment from Windigo’s founders. Windigo remains hopeful they’ll be able to get their winnings and distribute it to their former teammates, but CS:GO fans aren’t so sure.
Source: HLTV.org
