What began as a controversy sparked by racist remarks has now become a multi-million dollar issue. In fact, it was probably planned to be that way from the beginning. There are some new developments in the story surrounding esports organisation Echo Fox and the dispute between its founder Rick Fox and shareholder Amit Raizada who was accused of using racist slurs.

Just about a week ago, Echo Fox was about enter a deal to sell their League of Legends Championship Series slot to Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. This was after Riot Games decided that what Amit Razaida did was unacceptable and that Echo Fox would be facing repercussions if they didn’t remove him.

The final agreement for the deal to sell their LCS slot has not yet been reached so there’s still no confirmation on who’s going to take Echo Fox’s spot in the tournament.

PC Gamer reported that in a recent interview with Richard Lewis (embedded below), Rick Fox revealed that Amit Raizada basically “put a gun to the company’s head” by buying the debt that the company owed. The debt was supposed to be pushed out to the end of 2019 but Raizada acquired the debt and then asked for immediate payment.

This move doesn’t necessarily make sense from Raizada’s perspective since it would actually adversely affect him as a shareholder of Echo Fox. Rick Fox explained that it depends on how much he bought the debt for. It’s possible that he acquired the debt at a lower price and thus would be in a position to make a profit by asking for repayment of the debt at full price.

Fox went on to further reveal that Raizada actually tried to make even more money by offering to convert the debt to senior preferred but at the same time, doubling the amount.

To make it less confusing, this means that Raizada created an immediate problem by asking for repayment of a debt that was supposed to be paid later. He then offered Echo Fox a “solution” by deciding to hold off the debt if the company agreed to double the debt and make repayment a priority.

It was a few weeks after this that the whole racist drama began. By then Echo Fox management had already agreed to Raizada’s proposition.

Second from left: Rick Fox, Far right: Amit Raizada. Picture from Amit Raizada’s Twitter account.

This is all from Rick Fox’s side of the story and it’d be unfair to ignore what Raizada has to say. Fortunately for us, Raizada sent Kotaku a few statements to defend himself.

According to Raizada, the company wasn’t doing all that well under Rick Fox and that Fox himself was the one who approved the debt conversion. He stated all of the company’s partners were also asked to participate and that he wasn’t the scheming mastermind that Rick Fox painted him to be.

“I’m a passive investor, and do not run the company. I have never been part of the General Partner – which is the equivalent of a CEO. Rick never invested any of his personal money into Echo Fox and now he is blaming his investors and me for his failures as the head of Echo Fox.”

– part of Amit Raizada’s statement to Kotaku.

It seems that there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Riot is still investigating the issue and working on finalising the deal between Echo Fox and Kroenke or whoever is going to buy the team’s LCS slot.

The only thing we know for sure that Raizada definitely used improper language in an email sent to Jace Hall, CEO of Echo Fox. He admitted it in the same statement he sent to Kotaku.