A little while back we had some questions surrounding the recent MSSA organised match vs Mexico where it was uncovered that the team wasn’t, apparently, even Mexican. At the time I decided to not interview the players as I wanted the story to be about the MSSA and not the players.
This upset the players and after some cordial discussions with our DOTA 2 national captain, Anthony Hodgson, it came out that he felt I wasn’t being entirely fair by not talking to the players about it.
So we sat down over Skype in the middle of our busy schedules and tried out best to get an interview out. Unfortunately it was constantly interrupted by the outside world and responsibilities but here we go with the essence of what was discussed
Gavin: Do you think the DOTA 2 team selected to play against Mexico was our top side?
Anthony:
That’s a complicated question. Since the National team is selected once a year and who the ‘top side’ is might change on a daily basis.
What I will say is that our current national Dota team is by far the most representative of our best team that our national team has ever been and that it’s at least very close to our best team.
Gavin: Do you feel the way the MSSA organised this match was correct or do you think they should have done the research and realised this wasn’t an official team or even Mexican
Anthony:
I don’t know anything about how the MSSA organizes matches and don’t know any of the details regarding the organization of this match. I try to stay as far away from admin as possible.
For example, I’ve asked Colin in the past about the possibility of organizing scrims for us versus other national teams. Unfortunately, the MSSA seems required to organize Official Test Matches.
This means that all 5 of us need to be in one location whenever we play one of these matches and it also means they can never be organized by us. I expect that Colin organized this match via the channels that the MSSA is sanctioned to organized matches via.
Whether or not this is an ideal state of affairs is another question but I do not think the MSSA has unilaterally made it this way. The reality is that smoothly running International [country vs country] Dota matches presuppose structures which simply don’t exist.
The game is 99% private, played between teams and not countries and similarly 99% of the existing administrative structures deal with teams and not countries. It is not clear how the MSSA could interact better with this context.
Gavin: So you don’t feel the MSSA should have at least researched the team they are going to play against, as any other sporting code would be bound to do?
Anthony:
I am under the impression that they did do research. At least as much as Darryn Bonthuys’s article did (ed: BURN)
Gavin: Did you feel proud to represent South Africa in the match even though you quickly realised the opposition were not a national side or even close to the quality of you?
Anthony:
I think you’ll find that feeling national pride comes from representing your country and nothing else, really.
We didn’t ‘quickly realize they were not a national side’, we only discovered that much later. And upon realizing they were much weaker than us, something which we had suspected beforehand given the research we did into the team we were told we would be playing, we were disappointed that the match would not be a true test of our ability.
Does that reduce the sense of pride felt representing SA? No. Why should it? Of course we’d rather play stronger teams, whether representing SA or not, but it’s not clear to me what that has to do with feeling national pride when representing one’s country.
Gavin: Well you were told you were playing an official Mexican team, so when that turned out not to be true are you saying you didn’t feel slighted in any way?
Anthony:
Again, the question of what ‘official’ means here is very complicated. The Romanian team we played was no more ‘official’ than the Mexican team we played. Sure, they were much stronger, and possibly close to the strongest representation of their country, but that is not because they are the ‘official’ Romanian team. There is no ‘official’ Romanian team. The guy in charge of their government mandated group appointed someone to ‘choose’ the team about a week in advance of our match.
As per my answer above, I don’t feel ‘slighted’ when the MSSA organizes a team for us to play against that isn’t the best opponent we could get. I feel sad that we don’t have a more difficult match because it’s more interesting and more fun to play stronger opponents. But this has nothing to do with who is or isn’t ‘official’. I usually take for granted that the team the MSSA organizes for us to play is, by definition, assuming they follow their own protocols, the ‘official’ team for us to face within the structures within international dota 2 test matches exist.
Gavin: According to the Protea squad you are the captain and are affiliated to Knights Media Club. But you are also the captain of Bravado. Is Bravado an MSSA affiliated team and why do you use Knights for the official line up
Anthony:
[end]I can’t actually remember the details on this one – I think Bravado was in the process of becoming an affiliated club but hadn’t finalized that process yet or something like that [someone in bvd management would know more on this]. So we entered National Team Trials with the Knights Sports Club as our affiliated club. This is a club run by the MSSA themself and thus an easy way for an unaffiliated team to bypass what might otherwise be a difficult hoop to jump through.
And that’s unfortunately all we had time for, it is interesting to see the process from the opposite side and I would like to thank Anthony for his time and compliment him on his ability to get past the anger he held so that we could have a proper conversation about this and other issues.
We are not trying to break the local gaming community but rather improve it.
As a side note, pretty much every one of Anthony’s arguments is against the contract that he had to sign. So the MSSA now need to fine their team captain, something which would be a gigantic PR disaster and make even more of a mockery of the organisation. Or… more preferably is that they drop all those stupid clauses in the contract.
Either way, if Anthony isn’t fined then this contract will no longer hold up to law as this is a public breaching of it without consequence, so you no longer need to feel threatened by it. Feel free to talk about the MSSA and how they select their squads.
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Last Updated: September 26, 2013
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Admiral Chief of Rivia
September 26, 2013 at 11:21
heh, rock on dude, rock on!
Hammersteyn
September 26, 2013 at 11:24
I’ve got R200 for Anthony’s R15 000 fine. Who else is chipping in?
Admiral Chief of Rivia
September 26, 2013 at 11:31
FIVE DOLLAHS
Rincethis
September 26, 2013 at 11:34
So R500 then? Ha!
Admiral Chief of Rivia
September 26, 2013 at 11:46
5×10 = 500?
HUH?
Rincethis
September 26, 2013 at 11:48
Making the point the exchange rate is fucked mate.
GalacticLordCaptainAwesomeness
September 26, 2013 at 11:52
Zuma maths
Umar Jaeger
September 26, 2013 at 11:56
1+1=Jelly?
Admiral Chief of Rivia
September 26, 2013 at 12:05
14% tax = bigger fatcats?
Umar Jaeger
September 26, 2013 at 12:06
5 showers = 0 AIDS ?
GalacticLordCaptainAwesomeness
September 26, 2013 at 12:13
Absolutely
Unavengedavo (aka. Frik)
September 26, 2013 at 13:53
Hehe… FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAH
Lara's John
September 26, 2013 at 11:43
Six Dollars (take that Admiral!)
That Happy Twit
September 26, 2013 at 11:25
Thanks for this article @Gavin!
Rincethis
September 26, 2013 at 11:33
Nice one. Pretty sure he could appeal this as he is constitutionally given the right to freedom of speech. MSSA, Mighty Stupid Scaring Arseholes.
GalacticLordCaptainAwesomeness
September 26, 2013 at 11:39
“@Gavin…. you and your blob know nothing…
These are baseless and inflammatory questions that are asked of someone that may or may not be National Captain… ” or something along the line…
Viva Chilli King Gav…. viva
Weanerdog
September 26, 2013 at 11:59
I don’t think he has breeched his contract in that he has backed or effectively no commented on every question.
But what has come of this article is that DOTA international competition is in fact non existent and any effort in that regard will result in a farce. I don’t know if you would have better luck with lol as that is one of the games supported by the MSSA’s international federation. It seems that DOTA is team based and not nationality based and that is the only way to compete in competitions as all test matches will always be unofficial.
The selection criteria also seems that it faces a bit of a challenge, I accept that you need to be affiliated to the national organisation as this is how all sports operate but it should really be something that is easy and not expensive to do, from what I read above it looks like that process may be a bit difficult. Selecting a team by who can show up at a venue is not really the way to do it. If the MSSA wants to be taken seriously they should really have transparency in this regard and really be open to good suggestions but from what I have seen and read in the media they don’t really seem to be that open kind of organisation and more one that is run on bureaucracy and red tape. Disclaimer: Before being sued, these are my personal insights and I have never had any dealing with the MSSA or their staff, it is just from what I have gleaned from online publications and the MSSA website and facebook page.
Rincethis
September 26, 2013 at 12:05
Agree with your ‘no comment’ comment.
Weanerdog
September 26, 2013 at 12:15
Agreeing with me is the first step to enlightenment.
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 12:49
very droll!
I like it
Gavin Mannion
September 26, 2013 at 12:19
One subsection of the contract is
“I acknowledge that if I am interviewed while I am member of a national team, I shall:
Always thank the MSSA, and all sponsors associated with the event”
That never happened :), again you can’t chery pick when you want to apply the contract
Weanerdog
September 26, 2013 at 12:22
Interview was cut short he was about to thank them but was cut off 🙂 Anyway he could just claim that you just didn’t print it because you are Evil.
Gavin Mannion
September 26, 2013 at 12:43
got it saved entirely 😉
SangSang
September 26, 2013 at 13:10
ye we can totally trust your word
HvR
September 26, 2013 at 13:34
Gavin everybody knows you are head of the Evil Masons Society of SA (aka EMSSA) and that you requested the your evil master MS to change the Skype logs.
Mage Control
September 26, 2013 at 12:04
I can tell you if I was a South African Captain in any activity and found that the “Test Match” that I played in was not official or even legal, that I would be very angry with the organisation responsible. It would bring the Sport/Activity and nation into disrepute. The word “Test Match” cannot be taken lightly as it is representative of an entire nation. I’m sure if SASCOC was fully aware of this debacle they would not be very happy.
Skyblue
September 26, 2013 at 12:12
Anthony’s comments on national pride are spot on. The team can’t be held accountable for the opponents they are tasked with playing and have to instead ensure they get the job done. It remains a huge honour to represent your country in any chosen sport/discipline.
Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)
September 26, 2013 at 12:15
Doesn’t seem like he contravened his contract… But to be honest, all I got from this is that even DOTa players have it in them to go into politics. That was some Parliament-worthy slaloming around issues lol!
Jackson Mthembu would be proud!
Gavin Mannion
September 26, 2013 at 12:18
Contrac states
“I undertake that I shall not make any statements in any way about the team, selection process, etc., unless it is at the MSSA’s direction.”
The MSSA didn’t approve this interview and he said
” the National team is selected once a year and who the ‘top side’ is might change on a daily basis.
What I will say is that our current national Dota team is by far the most representative of our best team that our national team has ever been and that it’s at least very close to our best team.”
It’s not a detailed statement but it goes against the section in the contract… You can’t only hold people to the contract when you don’t like it 😉
Skyblue
September 26, 2013 at 12:23
Are you trying to drop him in the kak here Gav? Here’s your spoon.
Gavin Mannion
September 26, 2013 at 12:44
I’m protecting the rest of the industry.. Anthony will not get in trouble.
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 12:48
looks a lot like my mothers………
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 12:51
Not sure I agree with you. I think he was dodging issues that he has no knowledge of, but he knows that we THINK he does. Or issues that he was not involved in.
Basically it seems he and the team are not allowed to arrange matches and they got told who to play and when.
Oops
September 26, 2013 at 12:28
I’ll say it….Guys sounds like a douche!
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 12:48
How?
He seems like an honest guy, trying to tell his side. He wants to play games, to represent his country.
Can you provide some examples then?
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
September 26, 2013 at 12:42
He hasn’t actually breached anything. He didn’t paint MSSA in a bad light at all so he should be fine.
But it does feel like he was trying to be as diplomatic as possible with each of his answers.
Gavin Mannion
September 26, 2013 at 12:48
He has… since the contract is all encompassing it was breached.. that’s the point about the contract in the first place.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
September 26, 2013 at 12:50
Yeah after reading through the comments more and seeing some of your replies I see which parts you are highlighting.
Kinda scary that he said absolutely nothing bad about the MSSA yet in theory still in breach. That’s just crazy
SangSang
September 26, 2013 at 13:11
Obvious shit-stirrer is obvious.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
September 26, 2013 at 13:44
lol
Mage Control
September 26, 2013 at 13:21
So the Captain isn’t upset that they played a Fantasy Mexican side that could not have been classified as a Test Match for their country? There is a boat being missed here, surely some dialogue needs to happen between the Captain/Side and the MSSA as why this happened? Im sure this side has put in a huge amount of effort into the game to be let down by the organisation in a big way?
HvR
September 26, 2013 at 13:45
To be fair to guy I do not think anybody’s beef is with him or the team but with the continues misrepresentation by the MSSA. I still do not know why they are upset with Lazygamer upholding their right to report accurate information.
I do however think it is the responsibility of the team and all other members of MSSA to hold Webster accountable. There has been to many misunderstandings, outiright lies, money wasted on stupid court cases and every time an individual in the organization stands up and ask the questions they get drummed out and threatened with fines or legal action.
I for one will not waste any more of hard earned money to support the MSSA by competing in or attend any of their trails or events.
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 14:30
I know several people in the MSSA “camp”, but none in eSports. This is not a well run group, but what other choice is there?
Is the Sports Minister aware? does he care? I doubt it, low, low on the priority list. if ASA is such a mess, how do we realistically expect this to be a perfect group?
Doing some Google searches has netted some interesting results on the MSSA and the fights in the past. There have been several, big ones.
Weanerdog
September 26, 2013 at 14:40
The problem is one of the MSSA’s own making through arrogance.
I understand that this guy has been picked to represent his country and can only play what is put in front of him, but he must feel that his National Colours are a bit tainted regardless of what he says. He could have easily made that statement without any discredit to the MSSA.
My biggest concern is that the MSSA has utterly failed to take this up with the International federation who organised the opponents, which shows me the total lack of interest/denial on their part.
Clearly e sports are not a priority for MSSA.
Brady miaau
September 26, 2013 at 14:35
Rant start / The internet: A place where you can insult someone merely because you do not agree with them. Come on. People have different opinions. / Rant over.
I want facts. I feel almost invested in this, somehow.
How do we, as a gaming community, get the facts of the matter? Is there a way to force Mr Webster or the MSSA in general to answer some questions?
Who knows, perhaps the public information is not correct or mistaken, because of a vital piece of info kept hidden? I doubt it, but hey