League of Legends coach Tomáš "Nightshare" Kněžínek has announced today he has departed from Fnatic after two years with the organization. The coach cites budget constraints amongst other factors that left a "bitter taste", thus departing the multi-time LEC and EU LCS champions. 

With just less than two years under his belt with the organization, Nightshare departs from Fnatic after a disappointing end to its 2024 campaign. Fnatic failed to develop a championship-winning roster, falling at the final hurdle against long-time rivals G2 in the Summer playoffs, followed by a poor showing at the 2024 League of Legends World Championship. 

Across the 2024 season, Nightshare led his Fnatic squad to three finals, but was unable to pick up a single trophy in either of those matches, falling to G2 on all three occasions. This was then followed up by the LEC squad failing to reach the quarter finals, going 2-3 in the Swiss stage with their loss to Weibo Gaming being the curtain call to their disappointing season. Below you can read the full statement from Nightshare:

"My time with FNC has come to an end after almost two years. Year 1 focused on building a competitive roster to reach top 3, and Year 2 was supposed to further develop the infrastructure, with plans to bring in both strategic and performance coaches. I put all my energy and sweat into the project, turning a struggling broken team that noone was willing to join back then because of the risk into a consistent 2nd-place contender.

Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, we couldn’t hire a strategic coach, and the performance coach was only available for a short part of the year. This left a bittersweet taste, as I couldn't fully realize my vision for the project.

Nonetheless, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who supported along the way—hoping to cross paths again.

Keep fighting, and let’s see what the future holds."