Various female content creators and esports pros are concerned that they won’t be paid by Guild Esports.
The UK-based esports organisation was partially owned by David Beckham but was acquired by US investor DCB Sports in 2024.
One year later, Guild Esports is now reportedly for sale on an insolvency market.
Now, various female creators who previously worked with Guild are fearing that their unpaid invoices won’t be resolved.
One individual who claims to be in this situation is British gaming content creator Sunpi.
After discovering the news on Twitter, she publicly voiced her frustrations:
“Creators who are yet to be paid (me included) finding out about a huge esports company closing…via Twitter instead of from the company itself is awful.”
UK-based streamer and director GeekyCassie also claimed to have outstanding invoices with Guild.
While British esports presenter Frankie Ward stated she is asking her agency if anyone got paid but isn’t optimistic, saying:
“Unfortunately, insolvency means they probably won’t [pay] – I feel for the staff who don’t have jobs anymore, but I also think we deserve some information.”
Sunpi claims she has been in contact with Guild and was told: “They’ve known about this for six months and no one’s getting paid.”
She then further called out the organisation for having claimed to support women in the industry:
“This company did a whole campaign supporting Women… To then not pay us.
“Very disappointing to learn that these financial struggles were known about for six months, yet I was still engaged in the partnerships.
She is likely referring to The Lobby events for women in gaming launched by Guild Esports and Sky Broadband.
Sunpi was one of the captains, alongside Cadaea, Ebonix, and Harrie Silver, who competed in the £50k The Lobby League.
Esports rosters still awaiting pay from Guild Esports
As well as female content creators, there are also esports teams still allegedly waiting to be paid by Guild.
Australian Apex Legends pro Benjamin ‘Jesko’ Spaseski claims Guild haven’t paid players from last year’s Esports World Cup.
He and his former Guild teammates earned a ninth-place finish and $40k (£29k) in prize money.
However, Jesko claims that the players are still waiting to be paid a year later:
“It turns out the money was sent to Guild, and I had to find this out through someone who worked with EWC not our own org.
“After six months of communication with someone within Guild trying to help us get paid and them speaking with the financial team multiple times, ultimately, they still haven’t paid us and our point of contact is no longer working with them anymore.”
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.