'I moved into the garage so the boys could have the rooms' - SemperFi Owner

The owner of SemperFi, BenTheLegend, sat down with TheTruthCSGO to talk about the creation of SemperFi, what their ambitions are and general vibes within the new organization.

Ben himself, actually started off as a 'dad fan', being introduced to Counter-Strike while his son 'saVage' was playing the game competitively. His son used to play for JiJieHao, but after some troubles with the contracts him and European teammate 'keen' were in a position where they did not want to resign the contracts given out by JiJieHao. Both players ended up going their separate ways returning to both Australia and Europe. Ben's son 'saVage' was getting "messed around", so Ben suggested "why don't I just try to start a team here in Australia, we will get you and 2 other really good Aussie guys and 2 European guys, we will try to get keen."

Ben goes on to talk about how just before the creation of SemperFi, 9INE Academy were interested in his son 'saVage'. Ben was quick in telling him to hold off signing the contract while he tried to acquire the money to make SemperFi a reality. Luckily, Ben was able to get money from friends, family and close colleagues (some of which are poker gamblers) to invest money into the organization. After dishing out an investors packs and splitting the organization into 100 shares (where at the end of the year, whatever they make is shared between the shareholders) they made enough money to get the organization on it's feet. With this money acquired, Ben was able to pay wages for all his players, and fly keen out to Australia. "They don't get paid much per month" but he said that he did use some selling points to make sure the team would stick together. He lets the boys stay in his house without paying anything in accommodation fees, he pays for all their food and his biggest selling point was in saying "we can make a team that can qualify for the Major".

All the players apart from AliStair stay in Ben's house, where Ben has now resided to the garage to allow the boys the space in the house. He says that hopefully if the boys feel more comfortable in the house then we can make a Major. He goes on to say that life in the garage is not too bad after all, having a "couch, double bed and tv in there... it's actually like a little bachelors pad."

Ben has approached media organizations to make a documentary about the run up to Major qualifications and the background workings of SemperFi, with one agreeing. However, the organization was to pay for all of this, which was not in their budget to do so, which is a shame as we reckon it would have been a very interesting and entertaining documentary.

He is then asked if he still feels the same way about Counter-Strike as he did before owning a team to being a contender for events. His reply is short and sweet:

"I love Counter-Strike, I love it... I reckon it's one of the best games in the world, by a mile."

We wish SemperFi all the best in their next Major qualification run for Budapest!