Sources from inside Longzhu claimed that players and staff were regularly paid late by the organisation.
According to Inven Global Longzhu staff, including its players, were not paid on time, dating back years. Despite being purchased by Chinese retail group Suning Commerce, the team’s financial problems have persisted. Several members of the team and coaching staff spoke directly to Inven about their struggle.
Bontaek "Expession" Gu told the site that he was owed tens of thousands of dollars by Longzhu. His contract expired in November 2016 and he was told that all back payments would be made by December of that year. However, he still has not been paid. He also said that he was not the only one with such problems. “The entire roster and even staffs [sic] had problems with late salary payments, according to the article.
Things were apparently even worse for Jinhyun "Emperor" Kim. “I was not paid a single dime while I was on contract,” he said. “The issue affected my performance as a player, and my relationship with the team.” The Longzhu team that Emperor was a part of in 2016 finished 8th out of 10 teams in their last LCK split. He has since been paid back some of the owed money, but like Expession he has not received everything.
One member of Longzhu staff contacted Inven anonymously with similar stories. He had massive delays on his wages, though he has since been paid in full it would appear. However, he said that the current squad had struggled to reach a contract agreement with the organisation and had not signed a contract until midway through the 2017 season. Without a contract, the players on the new roster were also paid very late and the team was “on the verge of collapse” earlier this year.
Longzhu’s head coach, Dong-Hoon "Hirai" Kang confirmed all of this and more. “The problem was due to Longzhu's finance team being replaced,” he said. “I did tell him that the incentive will be paid out in December, but the organization failed to pay it." Kang said that he had offered to pay Expession’s wage from his own pocket but the player declined.
Kang confirmed that the salary issues ran deeper than just these two players. “Apparently, the political issue between China and Korea regarding THAAD also affected private sectors,” he said. He was unable to give the players any warning of the issues because Suning didn’t inform the management staff either.
However, another anonymous member of Longzhu staff said the original problems had nothing to do with any political issues. According to him “the salary problem was due to the finance team being replaced on September - The political issue came much later in December."
Coach Hirai confirmed that the problems have continued into 2017 but stated that they are purely caused by political problems and most of the delays have been resolved. The team has continued to struggle in LCK this year and finished the Spring split in 7th place.
