Cloud9 terminates contract with 14-year-old General Sniper on same day as signing

Esports organization Cloud9 has been forced to revoke the signing of 14-year-old Twitch sensation and League of Legends streamer “General Sniper”. The team broke the rules of the LCS by the signature of the young streamer who is considered underage; those who wish to participate in the North American LoL pro league must be at least 15 years of age.

Rayan Shoura (General Sniper) is famous for being the younger brother of popular Twitch streamer and pro League of Legends player Omran “V1per” Shoura, who is currently competing with Dignitas Academy.

V1per rose to fame in the early seasons of the game for being a well-versed and proficient Challenger level Riven player. His younger brother Rayan followed in his sibling’s footsteps by reaching the highest rank in the game, Challenger at only 12-years-old, and also gained himself a reputation for being a skillful Riven player.

(Image Credit: Dignitas)

Allegedly, C9’s intentions were only to sign Rayan as a content creator/streamer and therefore did not have plans to include him in their LCS roster. However, LCS rulings and guidelines highlighted for the code and conduct of pro teams informed the organization that they are unable to sign anyone who is under the age of 15, even as a streamer.

The news of General Sniper’s signing to C9 had been announced on November 3, but news of its cancellation surfaced the internet shortly after. All social media posts linking to Rayan’s signing were also deleted following the revelation.

C9 CEO Jack Etienne stated that the team was aware of the LCS rulings but assumed it only applied to those who were disassociated with the league, since their intentions were only to have the young player in their ranks as a content creator and not a pro player.

“The rules we received were specific about not contracting the services of anyone under 15 as a pro player, which we didn’t do. We were informed after our announcement that what the rules intended are to bar hiring of any person below the age of 15 for any reason,” said Etienne.

“This was new information for us, and we immediately complied. It’s a disappointing situation, but anytime a new large project like this is rolled out, there are bound to be these types of issues.”

However, although General Sniper’s excitement was cut very short, it is not all doom and gloom for the young streamer as C9 has stated they are committed to working with him in the future and when he is of legal age.

“General Sniper is a talented streamer with an exciting career ahead of him and we hope we’ll find a way to work together in the future,” Etienne added.

General Sniper currently has almost 17,000 followers on Twitter, as well as nearly 70,000 followers on Twitch.