A pay dispute at one of European esports’ biggest names has spilled into public view, with an agent accusing Karmine Corp of owing two of its own Rocket League stars more than a quarter-million euros — and the fallout may cost the org its star roster entirely.

Six figures, not “bonuses”

According to Insider Gaming, Jérôme Coupez — CEO of talent agency Prodigy SEG, which represents Rocket League pros Axel “Vatira” Touret and Tristan “Atow.” Soyez — says Karmine Corp owes the pair over €300,000 in unpaid wages. Coupez was direct about how he characterizes the money: “it is not a matter of ‘bonuses,’” pushing back on any framing that would treat the missing pay as a discretionary extra rather than money the players are contractually owed for work already performed.

The accusation followed Karmine Corp co-founder Kamel “Kameto” Kebir addressing the issue himself on stream, where he acknowledged that wage payments had been missed. Kameto’s account differs sharply from Coupez’s framing of an ongoing debt: he said the missed payments have since been remedied, and pointed to the organization having recovered €5 million in debt as context for its financial position.

A transfer offer complicates the picture

The timing matters because Vatira and Atow. are reportedly exploring a move to Gentle Mates, a rival org, alongside teammate Alexis “zen” Bernier — a potential superteam that Coupez says the unpaid wages significantly influenced. Per the reporting, Gentle Mates has offered around €28,000 a month per player, while Karmine Corp’s counteroffer to keep the roster, made as part of contract extension talks, sits at roughly €23,000 a month — a gap that, combined with the back-pay dispute, gives the players a concrete financial reason to walk rather than re-sign.

Karmine Corp is one of the most visible organizations in European esports, co-founded by streamers Kameto and the since-departed Amine “Prime” Ouazad, and competing across League of Legends, Valorant, Rocket League, and other titles. Its Rocket League team isn’t a struggling also-ran, either — the roster won the Rocket League Paris Major earlier this year, beating Twisted Minds 4-1 on home turf. That makes a wage dispute involving two of its headline Rocket League players a notably bigger story than a pay complaint at a smaller org would be, and it’s a bad look for an organization that trades heavily on its public-facing brand and French fanbase.

Why this hasn’t broken wider yet

Coverage so far has stayed mostly within esports-specific and French-language outlets rather than mainstream gaming press, which tends to treat competitive-gaming labor disputes as a narrower beat than, say, a studio layoff or a publisher earnings call. That’s a pattern worth naming on its own: esports orgs operate with far less financial transparency than traditional sports franchises or even game studios, and allegations like this one typically only surface when an agent or player decides to go public, rather than through routine reporting. Whether Karmine Corp’s “remedied” framing and Coupez’s “still owed” framing can both be true at once — payments made late rather than never, say — isn’t yet clear from either side’s public statements.

What happens next will likely be decided well before any of it reaches a courtroom. Gentle Mates is reportedly hoping to finalize its roster ahead of December’s Kick-Off Weekend, which puts a hard deadline on Karmine Corp’s ability to patch things over, repay what’s owed, and convince two of its most successful competitors that staying is still worth it.

For more on how esports and streaming organizations are being built and funded in 2026, see our coverage of FrostPrime GG’s talent-group army sponsorship deal, and for another recent labor dispute playing out in public, our report on Blizzard workers ratifying their union contract with Microsoft.