We can’t lie - we’re disappointed we ever thought ‘YaLLa Esports’ might ever be legitimate.

It just doesn’t pass the sniff test in retrospect.

For a start, Ninjas in Pyjamas were in the final of the first event - that should have been a sign it wasn’t a real tournament. Just to prove that the Lord has a sense of humour, too, they probably didn’t get their owed prize money.

They had Nothing in Paypal ‘cause YaLLa never sent it.

According to this long article on little known website Half-Life Television, YaLLa owe over $1m in unpaid debts as they close down operations midway through what was supposed to be a big year for the blossoming TO.

They had a few events planned in the calendar, but still just pulled the plug without really telling us what would happen with those events.

We can guess, mind.

They had apparently struggled to pay staff, and as the organisation was forced to declare bankruptcy, the owner apparently went on a bit of a selfish tirade about how badly it had affected him… not being able to pay people?

How do you think they felt, mate?

One staff member was owed well over 100 grand. You’d be absolutely livid.

They haven’t paid prize money to teams, they haven’t paid casters, hiring agencies, betting companies or… us. They don’t owe us, we just feel left out.

There’s loads and loads of details and anecdotes about how screwed up they were in that article, but basically, they just didn’t have any money and didn’t pay anyone.

Supposedly this is not an isolated story as well, with every TO struggling to pay on time right now. That sounds great!

We love esports, man. It’s a good job we do, because sh*t like this really takes the shine off.