Johannes Borup

As of today, borup and I have not received any payment, and communication from the organization has stopped. Because of this, we decided to share our account of the situation publicly. We will no longer represent kONO

Eventually, after a long negotiation process, we were offered 60% of the amount owed under one condition: we would need to publicly state on social media that an agreement had been reached and that keoz’s public statements about the situation were incorrect.

At the same time, keoz was dealing with a similar situation through his own agent. We did not comment publicly at the time because negotiations with the organization were still ongoing.

In December, the owner suggested terminating the contract immediately and paying out the remaining salary. I told him this would be acceptable, as it would amount to four months of full salary.

This clause was the main protection we had negotiated, considering the money we had personally invested into attending LAN events to build the team’s ranking.

Birdfromsky and I have not been paid by kONO for the past four months.

The contract was signed on August 4th. This meant termination could not legally occur before February 4th, and termination at that point would require payment for March and April as well.

7. Termination 7.1 By Team Owner The Team Owner reserves the right to terminate this Agreement at any time (but not within the first 6 months), with or without cause, provided that the Player is compensated for work performed in the month of termination plus one additional month.

Following this, I began communicating directly with the owner, Oleg. He contacted me about terminating my contract and paying out the remaining salary. The relevant section of the contract stated:

After the Christmas period, discussions about the roster resumed. cptkurtka was eventually transferred. Instead of benching Birdfromsky and me as previously discussed, the organization decided to place the rest of the roster on transfer and bench the remaining players.

At the time, there were two possible outcomes: - If cptkurtka was transferred, the team would look for a new fifth player. - If he returned, the organization planned to bench Birdfromsky and me in order to move to a fully Ukrainian roster.

From our perspective, continuing to compete seemed reasonable, particularly because the contract did not include any clause allowing the organization to reduce our salary if we were benched.

We offered to continue playing tournaments during this period while also searching for a potential replacement player if needed.

They asked to temporarily “put us on hold” until they knew whether his trial would result in a transfer or if he would return to the roster.

In early December, the organization asked to hold a meeting. During that meeting, they informed us that cptkurtka would be trialing for another team for the remainder of the month.

This effectively guaranteed at least eight months of full salary under the contract. The contract also contained no clauses regarding benching or reduced salary while inactive.

Because of this, we negotiated contract terms that provided some security. The agreement stated that the organization could not terminate the contract within the first six months. After that period, termination would still require two additional months of salary.

This concern was significant because we had invested our own money into attending LAN events that helped us reach a VRS ranking high enough to qualify for tournaments such as CCT and NODWIN.