Beforehand banned for matchfixing, Russian participant Erkhan “gokushima” Bagynanov just lately had his sentence diminished following his help with different matchfixing instances.
The 25-year-old had impressed throughout his time with FORZE after signing for the crew in 2023, however was benched in March 2024 after ESIC introduced his ban.
gokushima’s ban diminished
gokushima had continued to play for FORZE up till his ban was introduced by the Esports Integrity Fee, along with his closing match approaching the day of the announcement. Though the precise incidents had been by no means reported by ESIC, the articles of the Code of Conduct that had been breached had been confirmed:
2.1 Corruption:
2.1.1 Fixing or contriving in any method or in any other case influencing improperly, or being a celebration to any effort to repair or contrive in any method or in any other case affect improperly, the outcome, progress, conduct, or some other facet of any Match.
2.2 Betting:
2.2.1 Betting on any Match, together with matches that you simply had been knowledgeable participant in through the ESL IEM occasions as detailed within the infringements above.
2.2.2 Facilitating, aiding, abetting or in any other case aiding any celebration in committing acts described in 2.2.1.
2.4.2 to 2.4.5 Failing to open up to the ESIC a full and true disclosure of all of the info and Web page 2 of two circumstances with respect to acts described in 2.1 and a couple of.2.
The ban was initially meant to final from March 27, 2024, to March 26, 2026, however in a assertion put out by ESIC, Gokushima’s ban was diminished because the professional participant “offered materials help to ESIC, together with info and corroboration that supported subsequent enforcement actions towards different individuals.”
gokushima’s help aided ESIC in issuing bans towards plenty of gamers, with Aleksandr “Ruler” Maximov, Dmitriy “propleh” Senigov, and Petr “timeagento” Markheev all receiving five-year bans. Egor “zLy” Polyakov additionally obtained a lifetime ban for his breaches of the Code of Conduct.
With gokushima’s ban now nullified, it’s presently unclear what his subsequent transfer will probably be. He’s nonetheless contracted to FORZE, however the Russian group not has a crew in Counter-Strike 2. He’s the one participant who stays beneath contract.
