A rare incident happened to BRO during their match against KT. This incident was determined to be the referee’s error when the wrong position of the blue-red side was entered in that match.
KeSPA (Korea Electronic Sports Association) suspended a number of 10 game assistant referees in the LCK for making the mistake of choosing the Blue-Red side on February 5, according to the official announcement of the team. Riot Korea yesterday (February 15), specifically in the match between BRO – KT in the group stage of LCK Spring 2023.
LCK holds a professional tournament and rarely makes big mistakes like this
According to the press release, the bug forced Fredit BRION to “make a quick decision” before choosing the front. Normally, another assistant referee is responsible for double-checking before approving red-blue side tables like these. “The person in charge of testing overlooked that error because he was busy with other things that day” – BTC LCK explained.
BRO noticed the error and reported it to the referee team, but it did not reach the BTC LCK, leading to the inability to fix it in time. Therefore, it can be said that both the preparation and the situational reaction of the referee team in that match made a very serious mistake.
BRO realized the problem but the referee team ignored it
If someone thinks that choosing the blue-red side is not very important, they are wrong, the more professional League develops and improves, the more important it is to choose to start on the Blue Team or the Red Team. It affects almost directly the results, the way the teams build their strategies – especially in the Bo3 series. For example, in this meta, which team you play on will determine what jungle champion to play, how to roam early in the game, and who to target the bot lane duo, etc.
The position of the blue-red team directly affects the team’s playstyle, picks and bans, and needs to be prepared in advance.
“According to LCK regulations, each team completes team selection three days before the competition. The LCK will notify the team selection results to the parties. Three days ago, KT chose the first game of today’s match as Red, but it was mistakenly announced to be Green during the communication process to BRO later, “- Riot Korea explained shortly after the match.
“The fact that the party selection information was misrepresented to the BRO is a clear fault of the LCK. We sincerely apologize to the BRO for allowing this situation to happen. We will check all procedures regarding key information transmitted to each team in the tournament, including party selection to improve the problem and prevent recurrence. Once again, we apologize to the BRO viewers and the BRO team for the confusion caused by this confusion.”
KeSPA penalized those who made mistakes because of their own recruitment and training. In addition to the suspension of 10 games, the BTC LCK will now appoint one more assistant referee to check the side tables before the pick and ban period. In addition, teams will receive email notification of side selection results before the match day to ensure no unfortunate mistakes happen.
