It became known that the ESIC commission, which monitors compliance with the principles of fair play in cybersports, announced the removal of restrictions from Spirit coach Sergey «hally» Shavaev. This decision was made back on September 4. This was confirmed by the coach's lawyer Dejan Minic.
Thus, hally will again be able to perform his duties at official tournaments held by the organizers – by ESIC participants. That includes the upcoming RMR Europe A on October 4 - 9, where Spirit will compete for a spot at the IEM Rio Major.
In May, hally was suspended from official tournaments because a static version of «coaching bug»was activated in one round during one of his matches in 2019 . At the same time, a similar decision was made for Luis «peacemaker» Tadeu and Rafael «zakk» Fernandez. By September, hally was the last of these three still barred from appearing in major tournaments. Peacemaker's restrictions were lifted on May 28, as his sentence was reduced after an expert opinion. The zakk ban ended in June after evidence from another coach confirmed his innocence.
As hally's lawyer explained, since July they had been trying to prove to ESIC that the punishment was too harsh. Minich argued that the coach made a mistake by not reporting the bug, but did not use it to gain a game advantage and could not see opposing players. ESIC did not officially respond to the statement sent by Minich, but eventually lifted the ban on him a month earlier than originally planned.