Faker lawyers opened a criminal case regarding threats against him

LCK member teams periodically suffer online harassment from League of Legends fans. The severity of this harassment can be very different: someone is limited to unsatisfactory or angry comments, and someone goes too far and sends a “surprise box”, in which representatives of KT Rolster, for example, received weapons and death threats.

The LCK has repeatedly urged league fans not to harass players or stress them out with such things, but many of them do not understand this language. A similar story recently happened to the legendary LoL player, Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyuk, however, he did not slow down with the decision and requests.

The team of lawyers from APEX Law LLC, who represent T1 and Fake, made an official statement to the police in Seoul, and also answered various questions from the media:

Hello, this is Park Ji Won and Roh Yoo Hyun, Faker's legal representatives from APEX Law LLC.

Despite T1's repeated requests for those who leave malicious comments, we found that not only were there more such comments, but there were more malicious ones. The player, the player's family and all of his surroundings continue to suffer on a psychological level, so we had no choice to initiate a criminal case against those who left such hateful comments online.

Regarding Faker's opinion on this matter, we are only bringing criminal action against those who repeatedly and habitually leave such malicious comments, as he believed that these individuals should be severely punished. Thus, there will be no requests, no favorable arrangements.

Please be aware that our law firm will continue to monitor online comments to see if there are such hateful comments that may be criminally involved against Faker and T1 players, and will actively take legal action to combat such harassment. We hope that a healthy and mature esports culture can be created to avoid similar lawsuits in the future.”

T1 also did not stand aside and commented on the current situation:

Today, T1 will file a formal lawsuit against John Does from a certain online community who have consistently and repeatedly harassed Lee 'Faker' Sang Hyuk with malicious comments.

Faker himself believes that an objective assessment of the game and the player's career by the fans is what a professional player should endure. However, unfounded criticism and personal attacks are unacceptable.

We at T1 are determined to protect all of our affiliated members from unwarranted attacks. Earlier this year we filed lawsuits against those who verbally attacked our coach Kim 'Moment' Jihwan, and today we are filing additional lawsuits against those who attacked Faker.

The lawsuits we are filing today are not one-off actions. T1 would like to clarify that if additional incidents of violation of the personal rights of our players arise, we will take active legal action to protect our players.

Freedom of speech should never defame or violate the rights of others. T1 will continue to do everything we can to protect our players and create a healthy esports culture.

Thank you.

Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyuk is one of the most famous players in League of Legends. His career began on February 28, 2013 as part of SK Telecom T1 K. After 9 months, he moved to the starting lineup of SK Telecom T1, and even later, the esports organization rebranded and shortened its name to T1. Faker spent his entire career at this club. He has won three League of Legends World Championships to his credit. He achieved the title of one of the best players in the world in 2013, 2015 and 2016. In 2017, he was almost able to repeat his feat, but stopped one step away from winning the 2017 World Championship, losing the championship in the fight against Samsung Galaxy. Despite this, in the same year, the team won the Mid-Season Invitational 2017, which brought more money in terms of remuneration than the second place at the 2017 Worlds. Lee Sang-hyuk has earned more than $1,500,000 during his career, which is not only possible for not every LoL player, but also for representatives of other disciplines such as CS:GO, Dota 2 and others. Faker is a single club player. At the moment, he not only plays the role of a player in the organization, but is also listed in one of the leadership positions.