Several hours ago, the Cyberathlete Professional League's website reported that the CPL was dead. A press release followed alleging that it was a malicious attack on the CPL by someone who logged onto the website from the account of Martijn Bloemheuvel, the Cyberathlete Amateur League Warcraft 3 operations manager. It also suggests that "a huge number of poster comments at the CPL site from a specific IP range in the Netherlands that were vulgar and offensive" and that CAL believes that "these violations may have been perpetrated by Martijn Bloemheuvel."

According to the press release, the employees of the CPL mentioned by Bloemheuvel are still working for the company. The issue of the alleged buyout of the CPL by the Play&Trade organisation is not mentioned in the press release.

What the press release mentions is that there will be "an announcement soon on a new direction for CPL, [...] not as ominous as the unauthorized message presumes it to be."

Does the mention of a new direction mean that CPL will indeed stop running gaming competitions?

--
Press release:

For weeks several staff members have been correcting news posts on the CAL website that were being quietly changed to smear the operations of the CPL and CAL. In addition we had been receiving a huge number of poster comments at the CPL site from a specific IP range in the Netherlands that were vulgar and offensive. Now we believe that these violations may have been perpetrated by Martijn Bloemheuvel. Today someone logged on our system with his ID and illegally used the CAL database to send a false message to all members of CAL.

While this is not the first time in ten years that a rumor like this has been traded in online forums, this is the fist time that someone used our own database to spread it. And while Chris Moncivalles is no longer CPL's Commissioner, both Mike Allen and Thomas Hollingsworth have not been terminated as the e-mail insinuates. Also Chris still has his CPL e-mail account, manages the CPL store and is the commissioner of CAL. Unfortunately, we cannot comment beyond this as this is a legal issue now and our legal counsel will pursue this matter to the full extent of the law.

We will have an announcement soon on a new direction for CPL, but we assure everyone that it's not as ominous as the unauthorized message presumes it to be.