Bans of three CS:GO coaches lifted ahead of Paris major RMRs

After many appeals and insistence by the organizations, three coaches who were suspended by Valve for using the coaching bug have been released and can participate in major tournaments.

We are talking specifically about FURIA coach Nicholas “guerri” Nogueira, plus Anton “ToH1o” Georgiev and Alessandro “Apoka” Marcucci. ToH1o was coaching Luminosity Gaming before being suspended, while Apoka was the coach of Nexus.

Valve decides to drop the suspension of three coaches

While there was no official announcement from Valve, the coaches themselves took it upon themselves to publicize on their social networks the news that Valve’s ban from attending major tournaments was revoked entirely. The news was announced last March 1 through their Twitter accounts, and, in addition, Guerri explained the situation in the official ESL Pro League S17 broadcast that same day.

Let’s remember that Valve decided to ban these coaches for a long time for the use of the coaching bug. This prevented the coaches from attending Majors with the teams. For Guerri and ToH1o, the suspension originally ended after the second Major in 2023, which has not yet been announced. Apoka, for his part, was permanently banned.

The ESIC reduced the sanction of the coaches in previous years.

The three coaches received a significant reduction in the time they would be out of the top-level scene by the ESIC, which published a statement in August 2022 with this information. In the report, the ESIC indicated that it accepted the appeals of the Brazilian coaches and had therefore decided to reduce the sentence.

On the other hand, they asked Valve to change its position regarding this and also have the sentence reduced by the game developers. However, Valve disagreed then, which is why, until now, the coaches have been unable to be in tournaments at the highest competitive level of CS:GO.

The lifting of the ban comes as a ringing endorsement for the teams

This news comes in the best possible way for the fans and the different organizations. There are only three months left until the BLAST.tv Paris CS:GO Major 2023, and these coaches may already be fully in charge in France.

Similarly, Guerri is the most likely to do so with FURIA, as they are one of the favorite teams to qualify for the tournament in the RMR Americas.

In practice, this means that FURIA no longer needs to choose who will be in charge behind the players during the RMR Americas games. After back and forth between Tacitus, who left the team, and even Akkari, it is clear it will be Guerri.

As for Apoka, although he is no longer acting as a coach, he can return to RMR and Major broadcasts, along with Gaules and the entire Tribe, before he was banned from participating both online and in person.

Header: Adela Sznajder | ESL