SIBOL addressed the incident that occurred prior to the Nexplay EVOS-Blacklist International upper bracket match last Friday.
In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, SIBOL gave a detailed account of what actually transpired.
According to the statement, Nexplay EVOS informed SIBOL’s league operations of John Paul “H2wo” Salonga’s condition at exactly 11:00 AM. The star jungler was rushed to the hospital for stomach pains and excessive vomiting.
“At the very start of the match, at 11:00AM GMT+8, Nexplay Evos informed Sibol League Ops that NXPE player H2wo was suffering from a severe stomach condition which necessitated seeking emergency medical attention and was rushed to the nearest hospital,” opened SIBOL’s statement.
“This complex and unprecedented situation caused a significant overload of communication as Sibol League Ops scrambled to coordinate with NXPE regarding H2wo’s status as well as inform the opposing team, Blacklist International of the situation, in addition to communicating to Sibol Management the details of what had happened. This process resulted in a significant delay to the tournament schedule which caused Nexplay Evos to, unfortunately, miss the scheduled match start time,” the statement continued.
According to the SIBOL rulebook, failure to show up after 15 minutes may result in complete disqualification.
But due to the circumstances, SIBOL officials decided to hand Nexplay EVOS just a one-game penalty instead of disqualification.
Nexplay EVOS was able to compete, placing Rainiel “URESHIII” Logronio in the jungler role to replace H2wo. The team eventually lost via sweep despite H2wo’s return in Game Three.
“Normally, under the Official Rulebook of Sibol MLBB policies on Punctuality, any team’s failure to attend or complete its members within 15 minutes of the scheduled match time may result in a complete disqualification at the discretion of Sibol officials,” cleared SIBOL.
“However, understanding that the reason for the delay concerns the health of an individual, Sibol Management chose to show leniency by softening the sanction prescribed by the Official Rulebook to a simple one (1) game penalty instead of a full-on disqualification,” SIBOL continued.
SIBOL, however, was only able to relay the development to the team’s moments prior to Game Two. This caused confusion to both teams.
Nexplay EVOS assistant coach Setsuna “Akosi Dogie” Ignacio, through a vlog, accused the organization of prioritizing the livestream instead of his player’s health.
“Unfortunately, due to the delay of communication, the ruling was relayed to the NXPE and BLCK just as they were about to begin their rescheduled match at around 11:40 GMT+8,” the statement said.
“This understandably caused a lot of confusion and disappointment to all the parties involved and for that, we sincerely apologize,” the statement continued.
SIBOL vowed to handle situations like this much better moving forward.
“Moving forward we resolve to have clearer policies and contingencies in place for situations like this to avoid confusion among the parties involved, upholding Sibol’s values of fairness and sportsmanship and most importantly, putting the health of any individual we interact with at the highest priority.”
