FURIA CS:GO's contracts under scrutiny

Last week, FURIA's CS:GO team put pen to paper on a new five-year deal, having been with the organisation for more than a year.

Not to mention a five-year deal in esports being very unusual and, truthfully, a little suspicious, a lawyer spoke with Jarek "DeKay" Lewis to discuss their previous contracts – and he described them as "one of the worst contracts he had ever seen".

The Brazilian roster of Yuri ‘yuurih’ Santos, Andrei ‘arT’ Piovezan, Vinicius ‘VINI’ Figueiredo, Kaike ‘KSCERATO’ Cerato, and Rinaldo ‘ableJ’ Moda Júnior have blasted into the upper levels of competitive CS:GO in recent months, consistently moving up the rankings and making themselves a mainstay in the circuit.

The old contract shows a monthly salary of $1,400 USD following a $200,000 buyout, which initially rung alarm bells for esports lawyer Ryan Fairchild.

“Buyouts are harder to opine on as they can incorporate factors beyond salary, but a $200,000 buyout compared to $1,400 in monthly compensation, to me, is ridiculous and oppressive,” he said.

He went on, “What I’d like to know is if there was a right of first refusal in the contract, something that allowed FURIA to match offers from other teams, but only perhaps as to salary. The terms of that right of first refusal might shed light on how FURIA was able to lock these players in to a five-year agreement.

“I'm really worried about players frankly without knowing more.”

What most concerned Fairchild, however, is the prize pool split between players and organisation.

The leaked contract suggests that only 40% of prize winnings go to the players, with the other 60% going straight to the organisation.

“The prize pool split is among the worst, if not the worst I've ever seen," said Fairchild. "I can definitively say that. I rarely see a prize pool split, particularly in a Valve game, where the players/coach/manager don't split 90% of the prize pool.”

If any of this is true, we've got to hope that the new FURIA contracts offer the players much better opportunity than what they were getting; otherwise we could be seeing another Tfue situation soon.