London Spitfire Move Four Players to Inactive List for Rest of Season
By Nicholas Barth ·
The London Spitfire announced today that it had designated four of its players as inactive for the rest of the inaugural season of the Overwatch League.
Today, the London Spitfire announced that it had designated Hyeon-woo "HaGoPeun" Jo, Jang-hyeon "TiZi" Hwang, Seung-hyun "WooHyaL" Seong and Dong-eun "Hooreg" Lee as inactive for the rest of the inaugural season of the Overwatch League. The London Spitfire stated in the announcement that the four players will remain on the roster until a mutual release is agreed upon, or the end of the players' contracts comes to pass.
With the group of recently designated inactive players including some major contributors to the overall success that the London Spitfire has seen in the first season of the Overwatch League, many members of the community were puzzled as to why the organization decided to make the move. London stated in its official announcement that the team was looking to focus on a smaller starting roster.
Thank you @Hooreg, @HAGOPEUN_OW, @Overwatch_TiZi, and @WOOHYAL.
— London Spitfire (@Spitfire) May 22, 2018
https://t.co/MjHs89458e pic.twitter.com/WAp36F77Ju
"We have always sought to maximize the amount of talent flying under our banner, which is how we ended up with eleven members on our roster, all of whom have wowed us throughout the season. This strategy has brought us success, as seen in our Stage One Championship, but has also presented challenges. We know there’s a championship-caliber team within our ranks, and our goal is to get it to the stage," said the Spitfire.
"As such, our management team has been considering for some time how to best achieve a return to form and has arrived at the difficult decision of removing four incredibly talented players from our active roster as we look to focus on a smaller, core starting roster," the Spitfire continued. "These four players have been a pleasure to work with and we have no doubt that they will find the playing time they deserve on other Overwatch League teams in the future."
With the likes of former London Spitfire and current Los Angeles Gladiators player Chan-Hyung "Fissure" Baek finding success on his new team after departing London, there will likely be many other teams in the Overwatch League who will be very interested in adding one of the four now available talented players to their rosters.
Interested in more Overwatch League coverage? Check out the reasoning behind why the Shanghai Dragons revealed their training schedule to fans.
(cover photo courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment)