UPDATE Mar. 21: Streamer and former professional player for TSM Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng has weighed in on TSM's firing of Peter Zhang in a recent stream. "He asked me to loan him $70,000," said Doublelift. "He said his grandma had cancer, and she's dying in the hospital. He needs to pay the hospital bill, which is $70,000, and he doesn't have the money yet, but he will have the money at the end of the month and then he'll pay me back."

Doublelift also said that he wasn't the only person Peter Zhang asked: "Without naming any names, this guy literally asked everyone for money, and the story was different every single time. So he told me he needed 70K, he told someone else he needed 200K, he told someone else he only needed 10K. For me he told me his grandma needed an operation, for someone else he told them his grandma needed stem cell therapy [...] for somebody else he told 'em medicine."

UPDATE Mar. 20: A report by Dexerto's Richard Lewis states that Zhang "Peter Zhang" Yi was fired by TSM for financial irregularities, primarily in the area of having an agent-like agreement with Chinese and Taiwanese players that were signed by the organization. Allegedly, the TSM coach would take a cut from the players he helped sign with TSM across the last few years.

Sources also told Dexerto that Peter Zhang owed money to multilple members of TSM, including current players as well as some former players. In speaking to Dexerto, Peter Zhang denied all allegations except the owing of money to former TSM support Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh, who played for the organization's LCS team in 2021 before joining Weibo Gaming ahead of this season.

UPDATE Mar. 19: Peter Zhang has spoken on his firing from TSM via Discord. Zhang stated that his firing had nothing to do with in-game factors like matchfixing and that he had to learn a tough lesson. The coach thanked TSM and those he worked with and stated he would go back to China while waiting for TSM's investigation to wrap up before leaving the TSM Discord.

UPDATE Mar. 18: Head of League of Legends Esports North America and LCS Commissioner Jackie Felling has stated in a Reddit comment that TSM's firing of Peter Zhang was not an issue of competitive integrity and had nothing to do with matchfixing.

Original story:

The problems for TSM continue to pile up. According to an announcement on TSM's social media account, the team's League of Legends coach Peter Zhang has had his contract terminated effective immediately.

Though no information has been made known to the public about the exact specifics of the situation, TSM's PR consultant Gillian Sheldon sent out an email providing details on the decision. "We were recently made aware of very serious allegations of conflict of interest and unethical practices against League of Legends coach Peter Zhang", the email reads. "After an initial investigation, we have terminated him effective immediately. We are working with external legal counsel to complete a full investigation."

As yet, Zhang has not commented publicly on the situation. For more than a year now, Zhang has worked as a coach for TSM, and has worked in a variety of coaching positions for both TSM and TSM Academy since late-November. Working with League of Legends organizations for almost a decade, Zhang has also been a part of Echo Fox, Team Liquid, and LMQ. Working with TSM Academy, his last major result was the roster ranking last at NA Academy 2022 Spring.

On the TSM FTX Discord, Zhang's Discord account posted a series of messages. "I will write a post later about my situation, but thanks for the journey with everyone", Zhang posted. Other messages included "and please keep supporting TSM", "I did some mistake", and "and i guess it's bigger enough I got immediate release".

Some have already used the news to criticize the organization. One was LCS champion and former TSM player Yiliang "Peter" Peng, who after sharing disapproval for TSM's owner Andy "Reginald" Dinh late last year, retweeted TSM's statement about Zhang with "banger org".