tournament deal question....

recently i was one of 3 players left at final break of pokerstars tourney...only one 20.00 first place prize..freeroll tourney...i had about 25k...playerA had 95k and playerB had 85k...obviously i was a huge underdog and one would assume there would be an effort to eliminate the low man before a final war....but plA said to plB let's split the money 10 dollars each...i wonder if this is standard...whether overt or covert....anyway they agreed and it obviously was me against their better hand and they checked down when i was out...comments on the acceptance of this type of deal....thanks...gl