Rogue Warriors jungler WeiYan banned from the LPL after match-fixing scandal

In a post on the official Twitter of the LPL’s English broadcast, it was announced earlier today that the jungler for Rogue Warriors, Wang "WeiYan" Xiang, has received a 24-month ban for "participating in illegally incentivised activities" related to League of Legends matches.

Following posts on the official Weibo account of Rogue Warriors, it was revealed that these "illegally incentivised activities" involved the fixing of matches against bottom-table teams Dominus Esports and Victory Five. 

In a translation of the official statement made by Rogue Warriors, it was announced that WeiYan had been officially released from his contract and that the team would be working alongside the LPL to investigate the breadth of these accusations. It is clear from the information in this post that this is not a one-time issue - with Rogue Warriors stating that the match-fixing took place "after a year of repeated reminders and warnings" - highlighting the prevalence of match-fixing controversies that have plagued Chinese teams 

• Read more: Condi suspended amidst LPL match-fixing scandal

The LPL as a region is notorious for its issues with match-fixing - with not even a year having passed since the region’s last scandal, involving jungler Xian "Condi" Rien-Jie of LGD Gaming, and his supposed blackmail by manager Song "Hesitate" Zii-Yang into fixing matches. The blackmail was over another offence of betting on the outcome of an LGD game, also against the LPL’s competitive rules.