GamerLegion and the Paris Major sticker share: the offers and replies

GamerLegion's run to the final of the Paris Major ended in a disagreement over who owned the sticker money it earned. HLTV set out the case in an investigation published on April 28, 2026, drawing on the players' contracts and on letters it reviewed, and printed the written answers of the German organization's founder and chief executive, Nicolas Reber.

GamerLegion's position, as given to the outlet, is that every claim has been paid and that nothing is owed today. What follows covers the money side of the investigation: the contract clause, the offers made after the Major, the way prize money and wages were paid, and the organization's reply on each point.

HLTV investigation of April 28, 2026. The item income is HLTV's figure for each team of the Challengers capsule at the Paris Major; the shares are those of the contract and the letter HLTV reviewed.

A final in Paris and the money it brought

The Paris Major of 2023 was the high point of GamerLegion's history in Counter-Strike. The team reached the grand final and lost it 2-0 to Team Vitality, who lifted their first Major title that day, HLTV recalls. The money of that Major did not come only from its prize pool.

Much of it came from items. At the Paris Major, Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike, sold stickers of the teams in capsules, the sealed packs in which they were sold at the time, and shared part of the proceeds with the teams. HLTV puts the income of the Paris Major at a record US$110 million from the sale of digital items. Each team in the capsule named Challengers received about US$2.6 million, and team stickers made up about 56 percent of that amount, according to the investigation.

For scale, 56 percent of US$2.6 million is about US$1.46 million for team stickers alone. That sum is the one at the heart of the dispute. For comparison, the IEM Cologne Major, the next Major on the calendar, offers a prize pool of US$1.25 million shared among all 32 teams of the event.

What the contract clause said

The players' contracts held a clause on item money. It gave them 50 percent in total, 10 percent each, of the received revenue from the sale of team items, in the wording HLTV quotes from a contract it reviewed. According to HLTV, the wording suggested that only items branded with GamerLegion's own name fell under that split, leaving out souvenir items and viewer passes. The players, the outlet writes, took the wording to be ambiguous and believed they were owed 10 percent each of all the Major proceeds.

On HLTV's calculation, that difference meant more than US$100,000 per player that the players felt was rightfully theirs.

The difference between the two readings is the whole case. Under the players' reading, half of the team's sticker income was theirs; under the narrower one, the clause did not reach the Major stickers at all.

The offers made after the Major

The question of the stickers then became tied to the roster. Two of the players, siuhy and iM, were weighing offers from MOUZ and Natus Vincere, HLTV writes. Reber wrote to the team with an offer of a guaranteed 5 percent share per player of the total amounts received from all items, on condition that the team carried on unchanged past July, according to the investigation.

A letter followed, signed by Reber and by Julian "morxzas" Miculcy, then head of operations, and sent to the five players who had played in Paris. It pledged the 10 percent share of team stickers and added a 5 percent share of the sales of non-team stickers from the Rio and Paris Majors, with the same cut for future Majors. The letter also acknowledged that linking the stickers to the roster may have come across as inappropriate, HLTV reports. The players eventually accepted the terms the organization set out, the outlet writes.

Two players did not stay. Natus Vincere announced iM on June 30 of that year, and MOUZ announced siuhy days later, HLTV recalls.

The organization rejects the idea that the payments were used to keep players. In his written replies, Reber said sticker payouts were not used as a bargaining or negotiating tool, as he said the question wrongly suggested, and that the players ultimately received increased shares as a gesture of goodwill and in recognition of their performance. He added that sticker proceeds were paid to each player individually, in accordance with industry standards and legal obligations. Asked for a timeline, he gave the same answer as on the payouts themselves. "All claims were settled in full," he wrote.

Prize money and wages: the replies

The second part of the investigation concerns prize money, the sums a tournament organizer pays to a team for its placing, and the wages of players and staff. HLTV put the question of payment times to the organization.

Reber did not dispute that prize money came in parts. In his written reply, he said prize money was paid out in accumulated installments, which he described as industry standard. His answer on what is owed today was direct. "At present, there are no outstanding or overdue payment obligations," he wrote to the outlet.

On wages, HLTV states that by the summer of 2024 the players of GamerLegion's academy roster were owed three months' wages. An email from Miculcy at the time, quoted in the investigation, said the finance team was working every day to finish the year 2023. Reber's reply on salaries was that they were paid regularly on the payment date set in each contract.

The Age of Empires case in January

One dispute had already been public before the investigation. TheViper, the Age of Empires player who represented GamerLegion until the end of 2025, said on January 29, 2026 that he was in a dispute with the organization over unpaid salary and prize money and had hired a lawyer, HLTV recalls. About 24 hours later he posted a video saying that all debts had been settled.

Reber told HLTV by email that all outstanding payment obligations to the former Age of Empires players had been settled in full. GamerLegion had competed in the game since September 2020, according to the outlet.

The organization and where it stands

GamerLegion was founded in 2017 by Reber, after he retired as a World of Tanks player, and started as a coaching platform before it became a competitive organization, according to HLTV. It signed the Apex Genesis roster in Dota 2 in November 2025 and discontinued its academy in January 2025; it now fields two esports teams, the outlet writes.

The Counter-Strike results after Paris were thinner. The team missed the Austin Major in 2025 and went out of the Budapest Major in its first stage with one win and three losses, HLTV recalls. GamerLegion stood 26th in HLTV's world ranking of April 20, 2026.

The staff has also changed this spring. On April 24, GamerLegion announced that it had parted ways with coach ash, who had joined in mid-2020, ending a stint of more than five years. The statement thanked him for everything he had given to the organization and gave no reason for the split, HLTV reported. The outlet listed the players as Snax, REZ, Tauson, PR, hypex and imd, and named no successor.

The events ahead

The investigation lands as the team goes back on stage. GamerLegion is one of eight teams at BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 1 at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, according to HLTV's preview of April 28. The team sits in Group B with Natus Vincere, FURIA and FaZe, and opens against FURIA; Group A holds Vitality, Astralis, G2 and FUT. The groups are played over two days from Wednesday, April 29. The top three of each group reach a six-team playoff bracket from May 1, with group winners going straight to the semifinals and the second- and third-placed teams meeting in the quarterfinals.

The event pays US$1 million in total, split between a player share and a club share, the part paid to the organization itself. The preview gives both scales.

At this event, every placing carries a club share of at least US$50,000, and the players' share of the winners matches the club's.

The larger date is in June. GamerLegion is in Stage 1 of the IEM Cologne Major, where 16 of the 32 teams start, according to the rosters ESL revealed on April 22, as reported by HLTV. The Major runs from June 2 to 21 with a prize pool of US$1.25 million, ESL has announced. Stage 2 then adds eight more teams and Stage 3 the last eight, according to the same roster announcement.

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