Virtus.pro announced blackmail by the organizers of GAMERS GALAXY: Invitational Series Dubai 2022
/The Russian esports organization Virtus.pro announced blackmail by the organizers of GAMERS GALAXY: Invitational Series Dubai 2022. The reason for the contention was the lack of an official position of the club regarding the military conflict in Ukraine.
Today we are faced with an unthinkable situation: the organizers of the GAMERS GALAXY: Dota 2 Invitational Series Dubai 2022 gathered Virtus.pro players who arrived in Dubai at the invitation of Nigma Galaxy SEA and gave them an ultimatum. The ultimatum sounds like this: "Either your club takes a public position on the situation in Ukraine, or we remove you from the tournament." It even reached the point of threatening to announce that our players allegedly fell ill with COVID (all tests are negative), just to prevent them from playing. As an alternative, we were asked to drop the Virtus.pro name and our game jerseys, playing without being tied to a specific club and country.
At the same time, we know that Nigma Galaxy SEA themselves found themselves in a dependent position: their technical contractor for the organization of GAMERS GALAXY is the Ukrainian company WePlay, which put forward such conditions, threatening to disrupt the tournament. And this is despite the fact that the government of the United Arab Emirates, where the tournament takes place, takes a neutral position on the situation in the CIS.
Virtus.pro considers such behavior by WePlay and GAMERS GALAXY to be categorically unacceptable. We do not support any war in the world - neither in Ukraine, nor in Syria, nor in Afghanistan, nor in Yugoslavia, nor anywhere else. However, gross coercion to a public position does not in any way lead to an end to wars, but rather demonstrates and incites discord between countries and peoples.
The organization also spoke out for the first time regarding rumors about a ban on public statements for players and other representatives of the club:
Virtus.pro has never prohibited its players or employees from expressing personal opinions. Many of our players with huge media weight took advantage of their right to freely broadcast thoughts - including YEKINDAR, buster, OldBoy, BatulinS, m1loN, Jame and others. Colleagues from the RuHub studio, who, like us, are part of the ESforce esports holding, took part in peaceful rallies and spoke out on social networks.
Our CEO Sergey Glamazda, many of our players and employees have Ukrainian citizenship. And despite the colossal moral experiences, they want to keep at least hope for peace, and therefore do not succumb to numerous provocations and insults from individual representatives of the eSports community. This is the only possible adequate behavior in today's difficult times, when any lit match can be perceived as setting fire to an entire forest. And the support of Virtus.pro fans, who understand and share the position of the club, is very important for us.
Many Russian and CIS clubs are now under attack. Individual tournament operators have already started a "witch hunt". We urge them to stop and not become a mirror of the "traditional" sport, where politics has become an integral, ruling part. Esports is beautiful precisely because of its diversity, when esportsmen of various nationalities can play under the roof of one club, and only ping and time zone determine the territorial affiliation.
GAMERS GALAXY: Invitational Series Dubai 2022 will take place from 2 to 6 March in Dubai. The prize fund of the championship is about $272,482.
Earlier, Virtus.pro, owned by the ESforce holding, was criticized by the community due to the lack of an official position on the war in Ukraine. In addition, the Ukrainian organization NAVI has ceased cooperation with the ESforce holding, which owns not only Virtus.pro, but also the RuHub studio, the Epic Esports Events tournament operator and the Cybersport.ru portal.