Finnish coach Slaava “Twista” Räsänen has been suspended by ENCE until further notice, following his confessing to exploiting the infamous coaching bug. Slaava admitted to using the bug in 2017 during his time at iGame.com.
ENCE announced the news of his suspension in a press release and further clarified that Slaava has never used the exploit during his tenure with the Finnish organization. Slaava joined ENCE as the head coach in late 2018, indicating that his time with the Finnish organization was devoid of any bug use.
“While Twista has done a stellar job coaching the team at ENCE and we have no reason to believe he has had any foul play during his time with us, we take competitive integrity very seriously,” ENCE said in a press release.
ENCE has consulted with Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) following Slaava’s confession and is currently awaiting the result. Despite the confirmation from ESIC that Slaava can continue to coach until the investigation has concluded, the Finnish organization has settled on its decision of coach’s suspension.
“During our consultation, ESIC stated that we are allowed to let Twista act as a coach through the investigation period, but we have decided to suspend him regardless.” ENCE said.
ESIC will further conduct an official investigation into the matter which will decide Twista’s fate. The investigation will “take 2 to 3 weeks” during which Twista will remain suspended from ENCE as per the decision.
Twista chose to disclose the matter with the organization instead of making a personal statement. However, his official tweet was quickly followed by ENCE’s press release.
“As of today, I am suspended by ENCE as the head coach of cs go team.” the coach said in his tweet.
Twista is not the first coach to come forward with such a confession. Many coaches have confessed to using the bug to gain an edge over the opposing teams, including Faruk “pita” Pita, Allan “Rejin” Peterson, and Ivan “F_1N” Kochugov.
It is yet hard to say how severe Twista’s penalty would be as it is still unclear if he used the bug in more than one instance. Previously, ESIC has rendered harsh punishments to coaches convicted of the offence, with Hard Legion’s Aleksandr “zoneR” receiving a two-year coaching ban for using the exploit across three matches during ESL One: Road to Rio. The minimum punishment thus far has been given to MIBR’s Ricardo “dead“ Sinigaglia, who was banned for six months for using the bug.
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