Fifflaren Richard Lewis NiP Interview, NiP Exposé
Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson, after years of silence on his time with Ninjas in Pyjamas, finally came out yesterday about his time with the organization and boy was there a lot of shocking content there. So much content, in fact, that we’re going to be cutting this article into several parts just to be able to cover it all, so buckle in, get comfy, and let’s take a look at this Richard Lewis NiP interview.
The Beginning
Fifflaren started the Richard Lewis NiP interview by discussing the formation of the lineup and its insane run of dominance in the scene between 2012 and 2013. This period saw NiP go on their famous 87-map win streak, a record that has yet to still be broken.
He discussed how, outside of their relatively low wages, everything started out fine for the team: they were communicated with, paid on time, and the future looked incredibly bright.
The fun times wouldn’t last, however, as the players began to quickly notice they weren’t getting anything from the team’s sponsorship deals, merch campaigns, and even the famous McDonalds burger partnership. In fact, the players weren’t even seeing most of their prize money, with the org telling them they’d “pay it out over time to avoid paying as much in taxes,” a move that goes heavily against Swedish tax law.
Throughout the course of their entire run, between base pay, winnings, and team sponsorship deals, Fifflaren, who earned the most of any of the players, had only made a little under $34,000. Considering his team earned over $150,000 in that period off of tournament winnings alone, that’s an insanely small amount of money to have earned.
When asked about where the rest of the money went, Fifflaren stated the team was called into an emergency meeting in December, where they were told that the now ex-CEO of the team, Niklas Fiskoo, had taken all of the money they’d earned and run off to Thailand with it. This went directly against the claims Fiskoo had made in a previous Richard Lewis NiP interview in which he claimed it was all tied up in Heaton’s business ventures.
The New NiP
The same day, the team was introduced to a new sponsorship partner who would be doing a line of NiP chocolates. In addition, they were shortly after introduced to a new management team for the company who quickly worked to renegotiate the player’s contracts to include some rather horrible clauses, including:
- Players must stream for 10 hours per month minimum, but will not receive additional income for doing so
- A breach or violation of the contract by the players will result in a $20,000. Whether that was in Euros or Swedish Krona was not made clear, with the former being 20x their monthly pay, and the ladder being 2x their monthly pay
- Players can be put on the inactive roster at any time, which waves their rights to their salary and any prize pool earnings
- Lastly, if the team places in the top three at an event, they got a 75/25 split on the prize-pool earnings. If they placed outside of that, the split jumped to 60/40
With such harsh terms in their contracts, you’d be forgiven for questioning why the team remained with an org whose CEO had just absconded with their tournament winnings. What more could they possibly hope to get out of such a sketchy organization than they already had?
Well, according to Fiff, the team stuck with the org because they were scared: they didn’t know where they’d go otherwise, and the poor handling of their taxes by the old management had left them open to litigation by the Swedish IRS. The new management promised to pay for any tax fees related to this past mistake, something they feared other teams couldn’t or wouldn’t be willing to provide.
Considering the fees could’ve reached into the tens of thousands of dollars, and the amount of potential money in the org’s current sponsorship deals and media content, the players felt that sticking it out with the new management was the best course of action.
Things only got worse from there, however, as Fifflaren stated that shortly afterwards the org started to become more and more strict with what the players could and couldn’t do. It got so bad that the players were forced to ask for written permission from the org if they were trying to get a girlfriend.
Which, honestly, is pretty creepy of the org to do.
Following up from that, Fifflaren discussed the whole situation around Maikelele, which could honestly be a whole article in and of itself.
But touching on it just slightly, the team basically told Maik he would be joining the team in several months after they had another poor result (this was after the team started to struggle a bit). The team, however, won the Cologne Major shortly after that, so his entrance to the squad was pushed back a few months more.
When he was brought onto the squad the team forced Fifflaren to tell the team himself that he was being replaced by Maik, a bit of a dick move. While the org offered him a job to stay on as a brand representative, the players were furious at the roster change, and Miak was soon after kicked from the squad.
Owed Dues
Fiff estimates the team currently owes him $30,000 in unpaid wage, prize earnings, and sponsorship revenue, though he does mention that’s not why he’s coming out now about this all. Instead, he’s trying to raise awareness about the struggles of a young pro player, and how pros today need to be careful with who and what they sign, even with large orgs.
For his part, Richard Lewis also unveiled that NiP’s newer lineups were owed in excess of $340,000 in unpaid prize pool earnings and in-game sticker money.
The org has responded stating that all of their outstanding debts to players had already been paid, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt considering they’d also paid off Fifflaren for all they owed him, and he confirmed today that wasn’t the case.
Stay tuned, part two will be coming to you all shortly.
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