Tencent Esports organises an anti-match fixing convention

Mars Hou, Vice President of Tencent Games and General Manager of Tencent Esports has announced that multiple esports leagues in China have signed on to Tencent Esports Anti-Match-Fixing Convention.

The new agreement

This new anti-match-fixing movement is led by Tencent Esports. it includes four other major Chinese esports leagues, League of Legends Pro League (LPL), King Pro League (KPL), Peace Elite League (PEL), and CrossFire Pro League (CFPL).

Tencent has also signed on nine of their smaller esports tournaments like Call of Duty: Mobile Major, Clash Royale Pro League, and QQ Speed S League, and more. This new agreement will see players or organisers that have been caught match fixing blacklisted from the major esports leagues. They also mentioned agreements on anti-doping regulations, but they have yet to clarify how that will be implemented.

Bobby Jin, Co-CEO of TJ Sports and representative of LPL, Abner Chen, publisher of CrossFire and representative of CFPL, Allan Zhang, President of KPL, and Leo Liao, President of PEL, were all featured in the announcement video by Tencent.

Comments from the leagues

Bobby Jin, Co-CEO of TJ Sports:

“Tournament organizers should take responsibility to prevent match-fixing and maintain a sustainable esports ecosystem. LPL has improved to fix match-fixing issues in six areas, including prevention mechanism, management mechanism, technological means, optimizing communication, data collection, and education.”

Leo Liao, president of PEL:

“Equity and Fairness are the foundation and basis of esports and sports events. We have provided a general regulation to prevent match-fixing in the product, technology, management, and more perspectives. From the early game to the end game, we have many professional referees to supervise and verify the fairness of the match.”

Tencent Esports organises an anti-match fixing convention

Allan Zhang, president of KPL:

“Match-fixing issues have a huge [negative] effect on the development of tournament and league. We will systematically enhance the educational training before the competition. On the other hand, we will build a solid anti-match-fixing system by regulation, technological tools, and means.”

Abner Chen, publishing producer of CrossFire:

“Match-fixing is a devastating issue for any esports and sports event. Every esports team has to attend the annual verification and the management team training by CFPL league. We believe that the increasing business value of the league can only prevent match-fixing issues when the business value of the league is high, and every segment from the league shares more business value in the process.”

Fairness in esports

This is an important move for the Chinese esports ecosystem. Match fixing and general corruption is a big problem in the world of esports. In March of 2021, a joint effort between Tencent and the Chinese police shutdown the “world’s biggest” cheat provider.

The CS:GO esports scene has been marred by the constant accusations of match fixing and corruption. So much so that the investigation into the scandal has left the Esports Integrity Commission and has been handed over to the FBI.

As a relatively new competitive sport, esports still have a long way to go before they can weed out the worst elements trying to take advantage of the system but partnerships like these are a step in the right direction.

Andrew Boggs
Andrew Boggs

Since: September 11, 2020

Andrew is a Northern Ireland based journalist with a passion for video games. His latest hobby is watching people speedrun Super Mario 64 and realising how bad he is at platformers.

See all articles from this author