HLTV reports Passion UA owe former team their Budapest sticker money

The former Counter-Strike players and staff of Passion UA are owed money the organization has not paid them, much of it from the Budapest Major of 2025, HLTV reported on August 17, 2026. In the publication's account, the largest part is the team's share of the sticker money from that Major, and tournament prize money and wages come on top of it.

HLTV writes that the entire Counter-Strike roster has been let go, that the team's season was ended early on May 18, and that the organization has been silent on social media since June 23. Its chief executive, Artemijs Rjabovs, first agreed to speak to HLTV and then stopped answering; Valve did not respond to its requests for comment. The footballer whose name was long attached to the project told HLTV he was never more than a media partner.

HLTV, August 17, 2026. The item income is HLTV's figure, which it attributes to a published video.

What HLTV reports is owed

The largest part concerns digital items. At each Counter-Strike Major, Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike 2, sells stickers and other items featuring the teams and players, and shares part of the revenue with them. As a team that entered the Budapest Major in Stage 2, Passion UA made approximately US$618,000 from those items, HLTV writes, citing a video published on the subject.

According to HLTV, the players and staff are still owed their share of that money. The report gives no published figure from any party for the total owed, and neither the organization nor any player has put a sum on the record.

Passion UA's item figure is close to another one from the same Major. In a report on the new sticker system published on July 20, HLTV wrote that a team in the Budapest Contender capsule had made around US$600,000 before any money went to players. Under the system used at the Cologne Major in June, one team eliminated in the first stage said it had earned about US$60,000 from items.

Prize money is the second part. HLTV describes unpaid tournament winnings as a persistent problem that was never resolved, without naming the events or the amounts. Wages are the third: salaries were mostly paid on time at first, then increasingly inconsistently, according to the report.

The transfer that brought one player in has also left a balance. Imperial, the organization that sent the AWPer try, the player who handles the team's sniper rifle, to Passion UA in February, announced that it had called off the deal and recalled him. HLTV writes that it has learned that Passion UA had not met the terms of the deal and that try is still owed part of his wages.

Who says what

The account rests on HLTV's reporting, and the parties concerned have answered differently or not at all.

The organization's side of the account is missing. The CEO gave HLTV no version of his own, and Valve did not comment on the sticker payments. What Passion UA itself has said in public since June is nothing at all, by HLTV's account of its social media.

The footballer and the filings

Passion UA launched in the summer of 2023 with the footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko as its public face; in an interview of that time quoted by HLTV, he spoke of helping the players by investing. The organization's website still listed him as team owner more than a month after he left, HLTV notes.

His account today is different. In a post on Instagram on June 23, 2026, Zinchenko said that his role at Passion UA had been that of a media partner from the first day, and announced that he was ending his cooperation with the organization. Asked by HLTV, he held to that position. "I did not receive a single cent from it, nor did I make any financial investments," he told the publication. Of all the people HLTV approached, he was the only one to answer its questions.

The company's filings at Companies House, the British register of companies, give a part of the picture. They show that Zinchenko ceased to hold significant control on May 10, 2025, and that Rjabovs has since held 75 percent or more of the shares, HLTV reports. Both filings were submitted on May 18, 2026, a year after the change they record, and on the same day the organization ended its team's season. Zinchenko told HLTV that the public filings were wrong and that he was taking steps to correct that position.

From Shanghai to Budapest

The organization had results to show before its collapse, and HLTV traces them in its report. In 2024, Passion UA qualified for the Shanghai Major with an all-Ukrainian roster, beating Virtus.pro, Spirit and Astralis in the European qualifier.

In August 2025, the organization took over the core of Complexity's former team, JT and Grim among them. Complexity, which had first fielded a Counter-Strike roster in 2004, had announced on August 19 that it was stepping away from the game. Its chief executive, Jason Lake, said in a video that the organization had not been able to drive enough revenue to support a top-tier team, and that shrinking revenues had forced its hand, HLTV reported then.

The new Passion UA went far at the Budapest Major. The team entered in Stage 2 and reached Stage 3, where it recovered from two defeats before FaZe knocked it out in the fifth round, after two maps lost 13-11. It is that Budapest run that produced the US$618,000 in item income.

Both February arrivals came with a record. HLTV described try, 21, as Imperial's top-rated player over his 18 months there, with an average rating of 1.19, and had named Senzu, 19, the 13th-best player of 2025. On the day of the signings, HLTV expected try to take over from hallzerk as the team's AWPer; Grim was moved to the bench to make way for Senzu.

The rebuilt team did not reach the next Major. The cut-off for invitations to the IEM Cologne Major passed on April 6, after Passion UA lost the final of the Urban Riga Open Season 4 to Sangal, HLTV writes. At the start of June, HLTV's projection of ESL's Annual Club Incentive, which rewards the 16 best teams of the year-end standings for their contribution to the ESL Pro Tour, still placed Passion UA tenth, tied with Team Liquid at US$126,339.

The Complexity fee and the Grim buyout

The report adds a second chain of unpaid money, between organizations. Complexity had not received the full transfer fee for the players it released to Passion UA, HLTV writes. When Grim's sale to NRG came up, Complexity moved to block it.

The matter was settled in two parts, according to HLTV. Passion UA paid part of the fee it still owed. NRG paid the rest directly to Complexity and deducted it from the buyout, the price of releasing a player under contract, that it owed Passion UA for Grim. HLTV gives no amount for the fee or the buyout.

NRG announced Grim on its official account on February 28, less than 24 hours before its ESL Pro League Season 23 match against HEROIC, HLTV reported that day. Grim had spent four years with Complexity and then Passion UA, alongside JT.

How the season ended

The end came in May. Passion UA withdrew from the BC Game Masters Championship Season 2 in Portugal, a decision taken by the organization's hierarchy, according to HLTV. The season was ended early on May 18, and the whole Counter-Strike roster has since been let go.

No ruling on the debts has been reported, and Passion UA has not stated its plans for the company or for what it owes.

That change does not reach back to Budapest. For the former Passion UA team, the money from the 2025 Major is owed by the organization, according to HLTV's report, and the organization has not answered.

The .esports registry publishes Esports Observer, so the whole scene can read its news for free.