Why Japanese fan dislike Pentagram(PGM)
In season 2018 LJL spring split, Pentagram won the ticket to MSI and all Japanese LoL players in JP region got the summoner icon of PGM. However, I feel it really uncomfortable to equip with that icon. Today I want to say something about team Pentagram, which is rarely know to other region players.
Team Pentagram is used to be known as team Rampage(RPG) in 2017, but why they have changed their team name? That was simply because of the scandal they made serious violation to the law and policy of Japanese Immigration Bureau and Ministry of Justice. In Japan, residential foreigner have to carry his/her Resident Card with him/her (Immigration Law 23), which are former known as Alien Registration Card. However, the manager of Rampage decided to seize their foreigner player Tussle and Dara's card which is illegal at all. Moreover, RPG didn't return their card to them and claim that those cards belongs to the team instead of individuals.
Just before beginning of season 2018, Tussle and Dara were to moving from RPG to team BC, so had to renew their VISA application and that process requires their card. So BC manager asked the team RPG to return their card but they have declined it because they want to make their VISA renewal application harder.
At the end, RiotJP came to arbitrate the conflict between team RPG and BC, given the penalty as forfeited matches in spring split to RPG, and banned their managers and coaches from the tournament. In addition, the life without the card is illegal in Japan, RiotJP also officially warned Dara and Tussle even though they are the victims. The official announcement from team RPG(PGM) says, they did not seize but "keep" the cards to prevent the loss. About why they didn't return the card, they say they could not identify the manager of team BC and had some miss-communications.
Yesterday, the player Dara decided to quit playing in Japan and go back to Korea. He tweeted about how team RPG treated foreign players and expected apologizes from managers of team RPG which haven't made yet since Feb.
Because in Japan, e-sports are not popular rather than ordinary sports, the numbers of sponsors are limited yet. Team PGM(RPG) has a lot of sponsors and advertising firms because of their successful history, it is not hard to imagine they have some sort of pressures to RiotJP, not to give them further penalties or bringing in law-suite. I feel it makes an unsound accustom to Japanese e-sports scenes and will affect to the development of e-sports in Japan.
About the MSI, if PGM loses hardly, we feel sad that Japanese team's lost. However, if PGM wins somehow, we still feel the team with neither moral nor compliance win the international matches. This is the reason I don't purchase or equip the PGM icon.
TL; DR: Team PGM(formerly known as RPG) violates the law, unfairly controls its foreign players. RiotJP is under PGM's control from budgets aspects, and they can't pursue RPG's accountability. RiotJP gives us such a team's icons and missions with them.
