Counter-Strike: Global Offensive developer Valve has established where it stands on Major-attending teams having conflicts of interest.

In 2020, teams and tournament organisers involved in Majors will have to declare their business relations to curb conflicts of interest and be transparent.

In September, Valve released a blog post called ‘Keeping Things Competitive’ where it shared its views on controversial subjects like media rights exclusivity. It also made a statement on conflicts of interest, promising to enforce teams that participate in Majors having to declare any business relation that could lead to such a conflict. “We consider a conflict of interest to be any case where a tournament, team, or player has a financial relationship with any other participating team or its players,” it stated.

In its latest blog post, ‘Keeping Things Transparent,’ Valve fulfilled its promise by stating that teams participating in next year’s Majors will be required to declare their business relations. “While we can point to clear cases where relationships between teams and [tournament operators] have generated distrust in the community, we agree that our near-term priority should be collecting more data and requiring more transparency so that conflicts of interest can be properly evaluated,” the developer explained.

Valve wants to prevent the situation where, for example, a team has a relationship with a tournament organiser – much like the previous relationship between Astralis and BLAST Pro Series. While it’s not guaranteed that such a relationship will lead to cheating or malpractice, it generates skepticism and distrust for some.

Teams that aren’t willing to detail their business relations with Valve may well be disqualified from Major tournaments.

Source:Esportinsider

By DOMENICO DRAGONE

iGaming expert - with over 10 years of experience in the retail market in Italy and knowledge of global online gaming. In the past he has worked with the largest national gambling companies and he managed some land-based shops on their behalf. Entrepreneur, investor and enthusiast of difficult challenges, in 2015 he founded The Betting Coach Group, an international news and social marketing agency geared towards sports, esports and gambling companies. He is currently the C.E.O of The Betting Coach and is a consultant for Loginbet.it Mr. Dragone collaborates with providers (game developers) and event organizers with the aim of helping them develop networks and business across continents. Passionate about journalism, he is the creator and promoter of iGaming Cafè, the first talk show in Italy, dedicated to companies and delegates from the gaming world.