CS:GO coach Georgiev wins ESIC appeal over “spectator bug” cheating claims
The Esports Integrity Commission has ruled in favour of esports coach Anton Georgiev, overturning his ban from Counter Strike: Global Offensive for abuse of a bug in the game.
Georgiev is free to resume his coaching duties with immediate effect, and all costs of the appeal will be absorbed by ESIC.
Georgiev was initially banned for ten months along with 33 other coaches for abuse of a bug in CS:GO's spectator mode - referred to as the “spectator bug”. Through this bug, coaches could move freely around in-game maps during matches, meaning they could access information on the opposing team’s whereabouts, feeding information back to their teams in order to give them an unfair advantage.
The investigation into the incident began on 4 September 2020.
Georgiev appealed the decision on the grounds that the sanction was “unduly excessive as to be unreasonable”, claiming that he had no knowledge of the spectator bug's existence at the time the offence occurred.
He was also able to provide evidence which showed that the offence occurred without his knowledge, thus proving that he didn't knowingly help his team gain an advantage.
Fellow CS:GO coach Sergey ‘LMBT’ Bezhanov has also had his sanctions subsequently lifted since the initial decision.