You have released a ranking, which was highly criticized at the time of publication. Can you explain the approach and the role of the players in its elaboration?

We knew we had to work on this ranking for quite a while. We started little by little. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to say more, because the period when it really got going was when I was away from the CSPPA, around April, May and June, for personal reasons. I was kept in the loop, but I was not very active. So I had almost no influence on the creation and development of the ranking.

What I do know is that there are obviously huge improvements to be made, as everyone could see. It's something dynamic, and we're going to continue to work on it. I think we're in the process to partner up with an entity to help make a better ranking, it's not something that's a done deal, we haven't moved on yet.

So it really was the players who were at the origin of the ranking?

They had an influence on what was to be evaluated and highlighted. As I was saying, I don't know exactly what points were put forward, I followed from very far away, so I can't tell you more.

Let's talk about what is probably the biggest CSPPA scandal to date, that took place over the summer. HLTV ran an article accusing the CSPPA of having muddied the waters in its role between  players' association and talent agency, and its role in the aborted Heroic transfer to FPX. The CSPPA first denied, then acknowledged and announced that it would cease this agency activity.

 First question, was the Players' Council aware of this?

(He reflects). I don't think we knew about it, because we talked about it quite a bit after it came out. They explained to us in detail what happened, because the transfer from one structure to another took place behind closed doors at first. In fact, it was a real hell for the Heroic players and that's the main reason why the CSPPA influenced this transfer. I think Mads and Michael could answer this question much better than I could.

The problem is that they don't want to answer!

Basically, there was a huge pressure put on players who didn't have the experience to make decisions about structural changes, to sign some contracts within 24 hours. They were told that they were going to travel to America in the middle of COVID, without knowing if they were going to even play, or in which structure. I think I would have had an easier time dealing with it and I could have told everyone to fuck off, because those were unacceptable conditions.

But these players were T2 guys, they didn't necessarily have the right agents, they didn't have the right representation and they were in a very difficult position, they didn't know where to go for help: they couldn't ask the structure that was releasing them, they had difficulty communicating with their future structure and they didn't have an agent.

So the players were treated like shit, they were caught in the middle while they were traveling for a tournament, planning to stay in America for more than a month.

They figured they would ask the CSPPA for help. That's how it all started, they came to ask the Association for help because they had no one else to turn to. The mistake that I think was made, without knowing all the details, was whether the CSPPA negotiated directly with structures. That shouldn't have happened, that's something that has to be done between agents and structures, or players and structures.

I think you can give ideas, fair wage ranges, data that should be public, that's fine. If they negotiated directly with the structures, it wasn't with the idea of being shady, but rather to defend the players who didn't know what to do. I'm not saying this to defend their action, because they shouldn't have done that, they should have redirected the players to real agents with whom they could have signed.

I understand that it caused a scandal and that the subject came up, but basically it was really about a group of players who were in a bad situation and needed to be helped.

That's for the Heroic case, but the HLTV article explained that it was a practice that was not limited to that case. There were also quotes, notably from Nicolas Maurer of Vitality, explaining that the CSPPA had come to canvass some of its players for transfers. We are no longer just talking about helping some players "a bit too much", but clearly becoming a players' agency.

Honestly, I have no idea, it hasn't been discussed with me.

What does it say about how the association works, that it can go through things like that without the players knowing about it?

If my superiors in the association are doing this and I don't know about it, it makes sense that I can't know about it. Clearly, it's something they've stopped. I think it was Michael who was an agent before, or who was doing both things at the same time at a certain point, partly because the CSPPA wasn't making money. But he had to make a living, although I agree it's weird.

At the CSPPA, Michael and Mads now have had a salary for some time, so for me, from that point on, all the side activities were over. That's what I knew, that's what I saw. But the CSPPA must not get involved in this kind of business again, because then we would have to replace both people.

That's something that doesn't belong in a players' association, that's not the point, and it would create a serious conflict if it happened again. Especially now that the association is established and they are getting paid.

Let's talk a little bit about another type of conflict of interest, with the issue of players owning teams. Often, CSPPA communiqués reiterate the importance of maintaining the integrity of the competition.

However, there is the situation of TACO, a well-known figure in the scene, who owns a team he played against during the Major's qualifiers. It is known that Valve had destroyed Academy projects for this reason a few years ago.

Here we have a player who is a member of the Players' Council and who is in this situation. How does the Association position itself in relation to this? How can this situation continue? Isn't there a contradiction with the official position of the CSPPA?

(He thinks). Ideally, it would obviously be the simplest solution if this kind of match didn't happen.

The problem is that CS is a bit like the wild wild west, everyone does what he wants. In a traditional sport with established frameworks, you're not going to have a Manchester City player who is going to own shares in PSG. And there wouldn't even be any interest in doing that, in the sense that the majority of players capable of doing that actually have a fairly well secured future, they are not obliged to create companies and diversify their investments.

The Brazilians who created Yeah Gaming with FalleN, dead and company, I think it was a way to invest in their future.

What should the CSPPA have done about it? I think Valve's original answer is right. It's complicated to see a player who owns a structure playing against that same structure. It's not an easy question, and I don't have a perfect answer.

Generally speaking, it's not something that should happen, that's for sure. This is a discussion we should have internally, should we continue to work with TACO, who is an important member of the CSPPA? Should we give him an ultimatum to sell his shares in Yeah to stay on?

So it's not a discussion you've had?

No, but it's a discussion we should have. And for me, it goes beyond the players' association. Should the community, the players, accept that an active player has shares in another structure, majority or minority? I think that's where Valve wanted to intervene as the supreme authority, they can impose an immediate end to all this.

The only thing the CSPPA can do is not really deal with the underlying problem, but tell TACO that as long as he has shares in Yeah, he can't be part of the CSPPA. And for him, I think it will be more important to keep shares in his investments than to be part of the CSPPA. But I think we need to have this discussion at the CSPPA, I know we've already discussed having a multiownership debate, but other topics have come on our agenda in the meantime.

But for me, it is Valve who needs to actively put a stop to this. What's problematic with this question is that it creates doubt about the integrity of these games, without knowing for sure whether a team has thrown or not.

You said that CS was the wild wild west, especially from a legal point of view. We know, for example, that in France, the status of self-entrepreneur is widely used, with players who move away to pay less tax, etc.

Seen from the outside, we have the impression that the situations proposed to players to optimize their income and salaries in the short term, harm the long-term action of representation and defense of the players' interests.

 The fact that there is a myriad of legal systems where everyone is independent prevents the emergence of a united voice and possibly general rules applicable to the entire ecosystem. What is your opinion on this aspect of the organization of the scene and the impact it can have on your action as an association?

This is a question that calls for many others. We have a lot of players coming from all over the world, we are not in the situation of the LCS or the LEC where everything is concentrated in the same country, which simplifies everything: a single legal framework, a specialized legal team and everything is running smoothly. So, clearly, that doesn't help us in our action. But, after all, there is still a common base in the majority of countries, where the legal texts are broadly in the same vein.

What you need to know is that the CSPPA has not yet had to take legal action until now, except perhaps with an entity, I'm not sure. When a player is scammed on a cashprize, if a structure refuses to pay what it owes its players, the CSPPA will first go directly to the tournament, or the team, to put pressure on them.

This saves the players from having to do so and endangering their future. The only way to do that for a single player would be to go to court, but they don't want to go there, they don't necessarily have the resources. The CSPPA is much better equipped for that.

In the same way, if a tournament loses all its credibility in shady businesses and proposes, all of a sudden, a huge competition with 500K of cashprize, the CSPPA will refuse to give its agreement and strongly advise the teams and players not to go to them. The fact that we are a recognized association and that we have this capacity for pressure, it can solve a lot of problems in the scene. Especially because many of these problems do not deserve to go to court.

In terms of helping players in each country with different legislation, the association contacts local people  who can assist us in resolving the problems. We will never have a closed ecosystem unless Valve decides otherwise. So we will never have the same rules, with a unified framework. The CSPPA is doing its best to make sure that everyone can find their way around, so that we can help a maximum number of people and solve a maximum number of problems between players, structures and organizers.

To conclude, some lighter questions. What are the short, medium and long-term objectives of the Association? What are the current projects and what would you like to be able to work on quickly?

Over the last two years, we have worked a lot on all the legislation, new leagues, increasing the number of players represented. I think we are currently between 300 and 400 registered players. We've really tried to bring everything in line with the law.

Now, our focus will be to increase the players' involvement in the association, trying to present more concrete actions. We also want to slightly restructure our operations to prioritize the most active players. We will also contact again all the players, especially those concerned by ESL, Flashpoint and BLAST. We really want to have their support to take action in the future, to maximize the impact of our decisions.

In doing so, we want to position ourselves as an actor at the same level as the organizers and structures, especially to better understand the financial dimension of the current ecosystem and the impacts of the COVID crisis. We want to participate in a better balance in decision making, so that not everything is done solely between organizers and clubs.

More concretely, we absolutely want to solve the problem of planning. We are already well advanced in discussions on this plan, we need the support of all the players involved. At the moment, it is the central point that we are trying to solve, because it affects the health of the players but also all the actors of the scene.

Generally speaking, I think that the CSPPA is a very dynamic entity: as soon as we receive a problem, we discuss it and try to see how we can influence it. But we can't do everything, do what we want, we're only part of the system. We just want a spot at the table so that the players are properly represented.

You were talking about possibly reshuffling the Players' Council. Technically, how does it work? You propose a new player, is there a vote of the members?

I would like to have a vote from everyone. First of all, you have to identify the people who are interested to get involved. We need players who are able to be active, who have a real knowledge of the scene, it can't be a ZywOo who has been there for a year and a half for example. He can propose himself, but he would not be an ideal candidate for the role.

What is sure is that everyone's ideas are listened to. Can we apply them all? Not necessarily, because there are a lot of issues at stake, and the solutions are not always simple. I would like to have a collective vote, to decide whether the people in place should keep their positions, whether certain people should join the Players' Council, etc.

In any case, active, motivated people come out quite naturally. They're already going to be in contact with us, with Mads and Michael, and try to make an impact to make things change. That's how we integrated the new member of the Players' Council: he's someone who was very active, in direct contact with Mads, and the latter suggested that we integrate him into the board.

Unanimously, we agreed, because we are always in favour of people who know the scene well joining us, to have more ideas and strength in our proposals. We're not trying to do something elitist, we don't gain anything from being on the Players' Council, except to be shout at by the community, when we just want to help the players as much as possible.

Last question: tomorrow you have a magic wand, with unlimited decision-making power and funds, what would be your dream for the CSPPA, where would you like to take it?

I think we should have this icon that would represent the CSPPA, someone who is very respected. It would give a better opinion of what we're doing, which is important because we're trying to do something good, we're not here to be bad guys. So to have this first representative who could carry our word.

To have a better internal structure, so that people don't say "it's a group of 5 people who make the decisions". I don't have the details, but I would like something even more focused, established, with respected people in all positions.

Have you tried to draw inspiration from the organizational structures of traditional unions, with general assemblies, which allow for a better communication with the base?

We have tried to do this, especially on LAN. We invited all CSPPA members, booked a conference room in a hotel and offered to attend a general meeting to find out what CSPPA was doing.

Already, there were managers and coaches who came, when it was not their place. Journalists also wanted to come, and likewise, it was not necessarily their place. So it was a bit messy. These people didn't stay, because they were politely asked to leave, as they were not concerned.

But above all, there are a lot of players who just don't care. If 80% of your scene doesn't care, you can do as many General Assemblies as you want, you're wasting your time. You can't force everyone to listen, even if they're in the room. What you have to do is find the actors who care about doing things right for the players, the scene and the ecosystem.

You have to be an actor with them, you have to have the support of influential strucutres who are interested and who are experiencing the same problems. So, of course, it gives a feeling of elitism, since the scene is structured by ESL, BLAST and Flashpoint, and only a limited circle of teams participate in these leagues. And even in the best teams, not many people are interested in the structural problems, it's very complicated to manage.

We're always looking for the right people, and there's always a player on Twitter who will say "I wasn't consulted", we want to tell him "if you were a bit more active, if you were more informed, if you read what's being said about Whatsapp groups, you'd be more aware".

A lot of things can be blamed on the CSPPA, but there are a lot of players who could be more involved and interested.

Any last comment?

We're doing the best we can! (laughs). No really we are there to try to do things as well as possible. We're not here to bash this or that organizer, or this or that structure. We're here because we don't want to be fucked by the big entities around us that have more power, more influence, more resources. The only way to do this is to be united and we do the best we can.

More generally, I think everyone wants the voice of the players to be heard and the ecosystem to be fairer. But the way to do that is a lot more complicated than that. When I read that we should refuse to play tournaments, we can't do that, it's not possible if you want to build something with the organizers, you can't be in constant confrontation. It's so complicated that it's very easy to go on Reddit, on Twitter and say "the CSPPA they don't understand anything, they don't take action".

Just the multitude of actors: when you make a deal with an actor, you have to make an equivalent, fair deal with the other actors, so that everybody is treated well, otherwise they won't want to talk to us anymore. You've got a million pieces that go into the equation, and on top of that, we all have our careers, we all have our teams, we have to perform well in the game as we go through the tournament grinding formats.

It all adds up, and it's very complicated. The only way that things can actually improve on that front is if a former player, a figure on the scene, takes over communication.

But even I, if tomorrow I stop playing, would I really want to do that? It involves a lot of work, you're going to continue to get beaten up by the audience, and in the end, what will you gain by doing it full time? Is it a good life project to say "I'm going to work non-stop, with very little recognition, including from my peers"?

It's a very heavy job to deal with a complex scene. A person who would do that in a setting like the LECs, it seems much simpler to me, everyone is in the same place, the product is already correct. There we're talking about two European leagues, one American league, players from 15 to 20 countries, it's extremely complicated. I think people really don't realize how difficult it is to do something on such an open stage.