Questions were raised when Sibol announced the invited teams for the MLBB Men’s qualifiers, with Liquid ECHO, who had just won the MPL Philippines Season 13 title, missing from the list that included Falcons AP.Bren and RSG Philippines.
During a livestream on Tuesday night, Liquid ECHO jungler Karl “KarlTzy” Nepomuceno responded to a question about the issue. He revealed that his team decided not to participate in this year’s qualifiers because of a ban handed out to Sanford “Sanford” Vinuya for his refusal to join last year’s offer to be part of the IESF team.
Sibol general manager Jab Escutin confirmed the development to Tiebreaker Times and added that Sanford’s ban will last until February 28, 2025.
Escutin further clarified that this is not the first time an athlete under Sibol was banned due to the refusal to represent the country after agreeing to participate in the qualifiers.
“We have an internal list, but as much as possible, we don’t want to publicize the list to protect the athletes and their professional careers too. Bans are supposed to be private because the athletes are informed of their obligations going into the qualifiers and even during the process of banning,” he said.
“We want to treat our athletes as professionals when it comes to hard decisions like these and would not want to put anyone in a bad light regardless of the outcome.”
(C) MPL PH
This explains why there was no announcement regarding Sanford’s ban, despite it being put into effect starting February 2023.
In a statement circulated to members of the MPL Philippines Press Corps, Escutin explained that athletes who are not able to commit to finishing the qualifiers and fully participate in the selection process and ultimately serve their country, regardless of the reason, are advised not to participate in the voluntary qualifiers.
This is to avoid wasting the time and resources of the national qualifiers and potentially hindering opportunities for other aspiring athletes.
“Sanford Vinuya denied the privilege to serve his country solely based on the reason that his entire team (which lost the qualifier) was not selected to represent the country, saying that it would affect his team’s performance in the upcoming tournaments,” the statement read.
“We strongly advise individual athletes not to participate in the qualifiers if they only plan to serve their country if things go their way or have special conditions that hinder the opportunity of others to participate and serve the country. Because of that, yes, Sanford Vinuya is banned from participating in any Sibol activities.”
Escutin also confirmed that Liquid ECHO was still invited to this year’s qualifiers, but they politely declined the invitation as they could not commit to finishing the qualifiers and individually serving the country if any of their players were selected.
