Cybersports organization Gambit has announced that Konstantin «groove» Pikiner will step down from his position as its sports director, a position he has held since 2018. In the future, groove plans to concentrate on coaching. The statement notes that it is the one he has been devoting more and more time to over the past year and a half, and now wants to focus solely on it.
The news of groove's departure from the leadership position comes just over a day after insider Alexei «OverDrive» posted a tweet on Tuesday in which he mentioned that Gambit's current roster is now up for sale. Earlier, ESL suspended Gambit from the ESL Pro League Season 15 due to «ties with the Russian government», and BLAST decided not to invite teams based in Russia to its competitions. The restrictions on Gambit are due to the fact that it belongs to the MTS company, which in turn is linked to one of the sanctions-listed Russian businessmen.
The Gambit squad, led by Vladislav «nafany» Gorshkov, was allowed to participate in ESL Pro League Season 15 under the neutral name Players. It remains unclear whether Gambit's suspension as an organization will extend to groove, who is now no longer its athletic director.