Alliance Tournament V : Team Troubles

In the last few days there has been a flurry of activity relating to team participation within the Fifth Alliance Tournament. The latest announcements from event officials have led to widespread criticism from GalNet observers regarding the organization thus far.

After the highly publicized removal of Elemental Fury due to some administrative problems and the ongoing debate on GalNet regarding The Red Skull's entry, officials would have wished for no further problems.

However, this afternoon a senior event organizer was forced to make the following announcement. "We have received two official requests of withdrawal and teams have dropped out of the tournament. The two teams on top of the reserve list will take their place. Cruel Intentions (CI) will replace When Fat kids Attack [and] Band of Brothers (BoB) will replace Dawn of Transcendence."

Condemnation of the events organization was quick to spread throughout the network. Some observers were openly questioning the authenticity of the reserve list, believing events staff have simply picked two veteran alliances to take part.

The problems continued with the announcement from Fenian, executor of CI, that they "will not be fighting" and confusingly that staff had "confirmed [their] withdrawal two weeks ago." This was quickly followed by a statement from TWD of BoB announcing that they had also requested removal from the tournament and now did not have "time to prepare" and so organizers should "give the spot to another alliance."

To further complicate matters, Ovek from When Fat Kids Attack alliance refuted the claim that they withdrew and then asked for immediate discussion with the organisers. Following shortly afterwards was another press conference where tournament staff have confirmed that When Fat Kids Attack is still taking part in the event.

It appears "that one of the official requests was made in error" according to spokesman Nova, who also confirmed CI and BoB are now officially withdrawn. The free tournament slot is now being taken by United Corporations Against Macros.

With all this drama and intrigue coming before a single shot has even been fired, the tournament is already shaping up to be yet another hot topic of conversation this time around.