Selfie’s contract issue with Cloud9, explained

Former Phoenix1 mid laner Marcin “Selfie” Wolski has just been released into free agency after a brief contract dispute with current NA LCS organization Cloud9.

The dispute was first brought to public attention thanks to a Facebook post by Wolski outlying what he saw as Cloud9 preventing him from pursuing opportunities by notifying him too late that he would not be a starter for their Academy League team.

Since that initial post, Cloud9 has released an official statement that was reviewed and approved by Wolski, that seems to paint a clear picture of the incident as a whole.

According to Cloud9’s statement they bought Wolski’s contract from the, now defunct, Phoenix1 organization just before the contract liquidation deadline expired. Cloud9 then informed Wolski that he needed to negotiate a new contract if he wanted to play for the organization, however, Wolski declined their offer and requested free agency instead.

This is where the initial conflict came into play. Because he didn’t want to accept Cloud9’s contract offer, Wolski should have been sent back to his former team in order to settle the remainder of the contract. However, because Phoenix1 no longer existed, Cloud9 didn’t have that option. Instead, Cloud9 chose to pay Wolski for the remainder of his Phoenix1 contract opting towards his termination clause which stated that he would be given two months additional pay if the contract was terminated by the team without cause.

Because of this, Cloud9 offered Wolski the option to either mutually agree to contract termination, or keep his contract intact and continue to receive compensation from Cloud9, in hopes that another team would buy his contract. Unfortunate for Wolski, no team was interested in buying his contract, despite Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne calling them all personally to explain the situation. Because of this, Wolski remained in his contract until January 2nd, at which time he became a free agent, well past Riot’s official free agent signing window.

While this leaves Wolski without a team, or much of an ability to be signed by one, he will continue to receive pay from Cloud9, according to their statement, “in accordance with the terms of his current contract.”