Following allegations of match fixing in the grand finals of TI10 coming from Zhang "xiao8" Ning’s ex-wife and the backlash received from the community, PSG.LGD will incur a separate investigation from Valve.
In an announcement made today, December 2, 2021, on their Weibo page, PSG.LGD announced that they’ve started their own investigation after asking Valve to do the same and check all the recordings that they made during the grand finals.
PSG.LGD’s request to Valve went on October 27, 2021, about a week after Zhang "xiao8" Ning’s ex-wife claimed that she has proof of him betting against his own team for the grand finals. While nothing was proven, her claims brought even more flak upon the organization, which was already dealing with a big wave of negative comments from the Chinese fans for their grand finals loss against Team Spirit at The International 10.
PSG.LGD shared a screenshot of their email chain with Valve in which Bruno Carlucci, Software Engineer at Valve replied the following:
We have no reason to believe LGD matchfixed nor did anything wrong during the finals.
We are confident in the integrity of TI10 and its outcome - Bruno
Additionally, PSG.LGD states that after a month of preparation, the organization set up an internal disciplinary department to investigate and look into their personnel conduct. The investigation began on November 24 and xiao8 has been suspended from his function for a duration of 30 days while the investigation is ongoing. “The supervision center operates independently outside the club, and it is not affiliated with any department of the club,“ PSG.LGD mentioned.
Xiao8’s suspension will come to an end before the 2021-2022 China Dota Pro Circuit upper division matches are set to start. While all other regions have already begun the Winter Tour on November 29, due to some players still being stranded in Europe after the conclusion of TI10, China upper division matches were postponed until the 3rd of January, 2022.
