Valve Corporation, publishers of Dota 2, took to Reddit on Monday afternoon and issued the following statement regarding the supposed ban of Carlo “Kuku” Palad by the city officials of Chongqing, China. The ban was said to have come from the city government itself which basically eliminating Kuku from being able to compete at the event.

The information that was provided to us at the time was that the local officials expressed significant concerns about security and the social media unrest, but there was no official player ban communicated to us and discussions were still open on ways to handle it or improve the situation. We weren’t as concerned about the safety aspect at the time, primarily because we’ve had experience working through a variety of concerns that local officials have had in the past, and there were ways to solve for these specific concerns. However we didn’t pursue those options because we ultimately felt that it was inappropriate for Kuku to attend given how the team tried to cover up the apology. We haven’t heard anything since then, so it’s possible that the situation has changed for Chongqing, but we don’t anticipate any problems for Shanghai.

The statement appears to dispute earlier reports that the government representing the city of Chongqing was who actually banned Kuku from their city and event as first reported by Cybersport.ru:

Following requests to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security in Chongqing, we regret to inform you that Kuku is not allowed to enter Chongqing to participate in the WESG in accordance with the decision of the city government. As the tournament organizer, WESG will follow the instructions of the local government. This is the final decision.

From the statement it appears that it was in fact Valve that placed the ban on Kuku for the WESG event in response to TNC attempting to cover up an apology Kuku had given.

“…we ultimately felt that it was inappropriate for Kuku to attend given how the team tried to cover up the apology,” the Reddit statement said.

Developing.