Three coaches from the Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) community have received professional bans for cheating after exploiting an in-game bug to enhance their teams' performance. The bans were announced by esports tournament organizers ESL and DreamHack following an investigation by the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC).
This exploit, known as the ‘coaching bug,’ enables coaches to observe CS:GO matches through a ‘free camera,’ granting them the ability to view gameplay from any location on the map. Such exploitation allowed these coaches to provide strategic insights regarding their opponents’ positions.
The affected teams—Heroic, MIBR, and Hard Legion—were retroactively disqualified from their tournaments, losing approximately $11,000 in prize money and forfeiting ESL Pro Tour points essential for qualifications to key competitions such as ESL One Cologne and IEM Katowice 2021.
The individual coaches face different lengths of bans: Nicolai ‘HUNDEN’ Petersen of Heroic received a 12-month ban, Ricardo ‘dead’ Sinigaglia of MIBR was given a 6-month ban, and Aleksandr ‘MechanoGun’ Bogatryev of Hard Legion was suspended for 24 months. These bans are effective from August 31.
After reviewing the evidence, ESIC confirmed that all three coaches were clearly guilty of exploiting the bug. Teams were given the chance to appeal the rulings to the ESIC Independent Disciplinary Panel.
Under the terms of their bans, the coaches are prohibited from any involvement with ESIC member organizations, which includes working, attending events, or even attending matches. They must refrain from communicating with their teams 15 minutes before a match until it concludes. Additional restrictions prevent them from being on game servers, Discord channels, and during the official map veto process.
ESIC's investigation is ongoing, aiming to determine if any players from the implicated teams were aware of or complicit in the coaches' actions. Currently, there isn't enough evidence to confirm this. The commission plans to continue its investigations for another two months to uncover any additional evidence that may warrant further inquiries.
ESIC has expressed its gratitude to freelance esports referee Michal Slowinski, acknowledging his crucial contribution to the investigation.
