“I have never really wanted to be a public figure.”
For someone who regularly livestreams and entertains questions from viewers without much filter, BC.Game CEO Ali Muhanned surprisingly does his best to keep a low profile.
As we meet for an interview — his first-ever interview of this kind, he points out — his team is sitting just 15 feet away from us, fighting for survival against paiN on day two of the CS Asia Championships, in Shanghai.
Occasionally, his answers are drowned out by shouts and cheers from his team. But such moments prove few and far between during our nearly 30-minute conversation. BC.Game lose Anubis, the second map of the series, 13-4, bringing their run at the Chinese event to an unceremonious end. Just like at IEM Atlanta, almost two weeks earlier, the team, which features analyst Robin “ScrunK” Röpke as a stand-in, is eliminated without even taking a map.
In the two years since BC.Game Esports, the esports arm of the BC.Game crypto casino platform, entered Counter-Strike, the team has generated plenty of attention, though rarely for its achievements on the server. The appointment of six-time HLTV Top 20 player Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács as head coach in June 2024 marked the start of an interesting journey that Muhanned hopes one day will lead the team to the game’s upper echelons.
Along the way, there has been no shortage of turbulent episodes — among them Joel “joel” Holmlund being flagged by an anti-cheat before a match, an incident Muhanned referred to as the “joel situation”, and Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad’s benching in the wake of a gambling and betting-related scandal.
After a middling first year, BC.Game completed the blockbuster signing of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev from Natus Vincere in July 2025. Such is the Ukrainian superstar’s allure that the move instantly catapulted BC.Game into the global CS consciousness, even though the team was ranked only 67th in the global VRS at the time and had no other marquee names (that changed only three months later with the arrival of Denis “electroNic” Sharipov, s1mple’s former NAVI teammate).
“To be fully transparent, it was not that hard,” Muhanned says of the negotiations with s1mple. “He didn’t want to sit around and do nothing.
“He understood we were not a tier-1 team, where we would go straight into tier-1 tournaments. We had a very open conversation about it, that it would take time to get the players that he wanted, that we wanted.
“He was very open-minded about it. It was not hard. There were no crazy demands or anything.”
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As the 2025 season came to an end, BC.Game began scouring the market for a ready-made core to pair with s1mple and electroNic. This would give the team a foundation to build on and a slew of tournament invites straight out of the gate.
BC.Game were deep in discussions with Astralis and HEROIC, and there were inquiries for other cores, including Spirit’s. In the end, they had to settle for SAW’s core of Christopher “MUTiRiS” Fernandes, António “aragornN” Barbosa and Adones “krazy” Nobre.
“I can say it’s not what people think,” Muhanned notes. “Yes, it’s hard to get a core, but I will say that there were a lot of cores we decided not to buy.
“We had options to get a lot of top-10, top-15 cores that we had agreements with, that we were more or less about to sign. But then, last minute, they started asking for more and more. In the end, I was the one who said no to it.
“I heard some rumors that there were some players who didn’t want to play with certain players on our team, which is completely not true.
“We had some random teams asking for $8 million for the core. We have offers from orgs all the time. When people say we cannot buy or that players don’t want to come… It’s me deciding that it makes no sense to pay, you know, $10 million for a top-10 team and pay the players a 50K salary.”
He adds that there have been cases of players making unrealistic demands to join the team.
“I think a lot of players should take a look in the mirror.”
When I ask hiim about other cores he attempted to sign, Muhanned simply says he “spoke with almost every team,” though he instantly clarifies that this doesn’t necessarily mean there was a serious interest in all of them.
“We did it to understand their situation, what they’re doing, and the business,” he explains. “And if people think we’re going to buy a team because we get information about them… I guess some people don’t understand business.”
Retaining the No.22 ranking the SAW core brought with them was always going to be a tall order, but the extent of the collapse that followed was difficult to predict.
After a positive debut at IEM Krakow, where they made it to Stage 2 by beating a Legacy team on its last legs and Ninjas in Pyjamas, BC.Game looked woefully off the pace in their next trips, placing 5th-6th at Parken Challenger Championship Season 1, 13th-16th at Roman Imperium Cup VI and 12th-14th at PGL Bucharest.
After PGL Bucharest, MUTiRiS and aragornN were removed from the starting lineup
When the Cologne Major invites were sent out, BC.Game were ranked 48th in Europe, almost 300 Valve points off the qualification zone.
As if things weren’t already bad enough, MUTiRiS gave a bombshell interview while in Bucharest suggesting he didn’t hold as much power inside the team as perhaps he thought he would. “Here I’m more the IGL, I’m not the captain,” he said. “That’s how I feel inside. When you are the captain, you make some decisions, you have more voice. Here I am more the IGL and I am more following some things.”
MUTiRiS went on to say that the future looked uncertain. Just one week later, he and aragornN were benched — a surprising decision with two events still remaining before the break.
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From the moment the roster came together, MUTiRiS was regarded by many as the key piece of the trio, the one whose position appeared safest when the organization eventually pursued upgrades.
Muhanned insists MUTiRiS’ interview didn’t play any part in his benching.
“It’s just that it didn’t connect,” he says. “I think everyone saw it. Everyone understood it with the results we had.
“I don’t think he is the problem. I don’t think anyone is the problem. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work.”
He agrees that signing the SAW core was the wrong move. But, he notes, with “no other tier-1 option that we thought was interesting at that point,” the alternative was to pluck players from different teams and grind their way up the VRS.
“I can say that rain was very close,” he reveals. “But then there were last-minute changes. That was the only move that we should have made. But I don’t see anything else that we could have done.”
Håvard “rain” Nygaard would go on to join 100 Thieves, a newly built roster with players who came from different teams (one of them, André “Ag1l” Gil, was signed from SAW). Since the start of the year, the community has picked apart the pros and cons of both projects.
Muhanned notes that neither team ultimately qualified for the Major — a statement that conveniently disregards the fact that his own team was far behind 100 Thieves by the April 6 Major cutoff despite enjoying a significant head start.
BC.Game’s CEO watched as the team was eliminated from CAC in last place
I counter that, at least, 100 Thieves didn’t have to shell out a load of cash to sign a core. When he asks me how much money I think BC.Game spent on the core, I say the latest number I heard: around $2 million. He says it’s not accurate, without indicating whether the figure is too high or too low.
“100 Thieves bought out players,” he says. “I know the salaries they have.
“It’s very interesting when people mention it. But, you know, they didn’t reach the Major. We played tier-1 tournaments; they didn’t. We see the value in other ways.”
Nonetheless, 100 Thieves have a stable team (and a small trophy in the bag), while BC.Game remain in the hunt for a new IGL — one of the hardest positions to fill — and have one player, Azbayar “Senzu” Munkhbold, signed on loan.
Muhanned says BC.Game have the option to sign the Mongolian star on a permanent basis during the break. As for the vacant spot, the goal is to get “a tier-1 IGL.”
“We want to have a younger team,” he says. “I think we have a lot of experience right now. We don’t have plans to change anyone else. We will see what happens with Senzu.
“I don’t think a lot of teams are making IGL moves. But we will see.”
Despite the difficulties in building a world-class roster, Muhanned insists there is strong interest from elite players. He claims that players from top-10 teams have slid into his DMs asking to be signed.
“I did expect that, and the only reason is money,” he says. “I would say the karrigan move is the same thing. Money talks in many ways.
“Players want to come to have a good salary, but then there’s also the conversation with the orgs, where often there is a big problem.
“Without saying too much, we have had conversations with some orgs asking $1.3 million for an IGL. It wouldn’t make sense to buy an IGL for that. So it’s a bigger picture where the relation with the orgs is hard.
“Sometimes it’s the player, sometimes it’s the org.”
When it comes to BC.Game, the biggest question is how long it will take to assemble a team capable of living up to s1mple’s lofty standards. Even in Krakow, when the team was supposed to be in a honeymoon period, the Ukrainian made no effort to mask his irritation at some of his teammates’ decisions. That discontent has only deepened as the year has worn on.
At 28, s1mple is reaching the point where defying Father Time grows harder with each passing month. Is there a sense of urgency to give s1mple the roster he deserves before he walks away from the game out of frustration?
“I speak a lot with him, and he understands that it’s not about what he deserves; it’s about what the team deserves,” Muhanned says. “He says he is pretty good, that he is taking a step back, that he doesn’t have to be the star. He wants to bring other people up.
“And, of course, we want to bring in people who work with him, TaZ and electroNic. That’s the pressure. It’s not the pressure of getting players who can deliver for him.
“You can bring someone who is really good, like donk, but he might not work with s1mple, electroNic or TaZ. I think that’s the toughest thing. It’s that little puzzle, you know? I think that’s the hardest part behind the scenes.”
BCG’s CEO says s1mple is willing to take a step back and bring other people up
Still, Muhanned has no doubt that s1mple remains as hungry as ever.
“I have seen comments that he’s not playing FACEIT, or that he’s playing Dota or whatever,” he says. “People don’t see what goes on behind the scenes.
“I have been to three events, and when I walk by the practice room, he’s one of the guys who stay the longest. He just sits and plays Deathmatch.
“ropz doesn’t play FACEIT. Some people just don’t. And I think f0rest was playing World of Warcraft between games. It’s different for everyone.
“But the fire in this kid — I don’t see it going away for a long time.”
The changes during the player break will go beyond the roster. Until now, BC.Game have been running what Muhanned calls “a very chill operation.” However, as the team aims to take the next step, the organization will need to scale up and hire for several new positions that didn’t previously exist.
As the player break draws near, Muhanned is looking ahead to the Singapore Major and beyond. His goal is to make BC.Game a top-5 team by the end of the year — and he will spare no expense to get there.
“It’s just business in the end, and it needs to make sense,” he says. “But with my passion for the game, I want to be a top-5 team. We will make it, even if it costs money and takes time.”
Does that mean he can try to get someone like donk or ZywOo?
“Of course, if they want,” he says. “But ZywOo will need to play rifle because we have the GOAT on our team right now.
“So if he wants to rifle, maybe we can discuss that. Or IGL. We need an IGL right now.”
