LCK fan drama goes on: DWG KIA fans call for head coach getting fired

Recent months have been very turbulent in the LCK fan community. Many top-tier and popular organizations, including T1 and KT Rolster, had to deal with various incidents with their fanbase. 

Now, DWG KIA joins the “drama party” as fans release a statement demanding the coach’s resignation.

According to Inven’s report, an online fan community called” DWG KIA minor gallery” released a five-page statement directed to DWG KIA management. 

Among the demands, the statement calls for the immediate resignation of DWG KIA’s LoL head coach, Yang “Daeny” Dae-in.

DWG KIA fans call for “Daeny’s head”

The fans that issued the statement are very unhappy with Daney’s work as a head coach. They claim that Daeny’s direction and methods “provide confusion to the players’ gameplay.”

Fans feel it is his responsibility that the team is regressing in their performance while “failing to provide a detailed solution to such regression.”

According to Inven’s translation, the fans provided four main reasons behind their demands:

1. “The continued nonsensical drafts that left the fans, as well as the experts in the scene unable to understand them.”
2. “The current direction of the team is contrary to how the other teams play the game, which is the same as how DWG KIA played in the past.”
3. “Due to the head coach forcing his unique philosophies of the game to the team’s gameplay, the team continued to display disorder in their gameplay, resulting in continued losses.”
4. “The head coach continued to decline interviews on the matches they lost, which led to the players having to explain why they lost; even in the interviews that he did himself, he shifted all the blame on the players, resulting in mental pressure for the players.”

Furthermore, the fans believe that the rest of the coaching staff, coach Lee “Zefa” Jae-min, and Athletic Director for DWG KIA, Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun are more than capable of taking Daeny’s position.

Fans are worried about the team’s future and want better communication

They feel the organization hasn’t done nearly enough to establish proper communication with the fanbase. They avoid answering important and sensitive questions and “just say whatever they want” instead.

“We demand that the DWG KIA management provides a solution to such a lack of communication, with a detailed plan on how they’ll do so. Furthermore, we demand that they discard the current one-sided form of communication, and that the DWG KIA executives actually answer the questions that the fans have, pool opinions together, and provide the opportunities for mutual communication.”

DWG KIA fans also pointed out the team is releasing less team content, as well as its poor quality. 

They are dissatisfied with the management for not explaining why was the team documentary delayed and the cancellation of the players’ streams.

They close the statement with the following: “There is a necessity to provide a long-term future operation plan, as well as the organization’s vision, yet they’ve not provided enough of it to the fans. We demand that the organization provides enough assurance to the fans for their trust and support.”

LCK fan drama keeps going

DWG KIA is underperforming in 2022 compared to the previous years, and the fans are going wild. 

However, they are still nowhere near T1 and KT Rolster fans, who also voiced their displeasure with their orgs in various crazy ways.

T1 fans sent trucks with messages against the coaching staff on two occasions, and Faker filed a lawsuit against fans harassing him online. 
KT Rolster fans went even further as they sent a “lethal weapon” to the KT headquarters.

It’s well known that Korean League of Legends fans are incredibly passionate about their teams. Their star players are mainstream celebrities, just like footballers are in Europe.

We can even compare fans demanding front office changes to European football fan culture, as it is a widespread scene in many football clubs that perform below fans’ expectations.

However, we must raise the question of where the line is and what fans can and can’t do. Do fans have the right to demand something like this, or is it unacceptable?