CS:GO Tournaments Are Banning Russian Teams One by One

CS:GO Russian teams are struggling with an issue these days. They're being sanctioned by the esports community following their country's invasion of Ukraine. As a result of these sanctions, teams are being banned from tournaments one by one and left out of the field. Recently, two tournament organizers, ESL and BLAST, decided that teams from the CIS region, which includes Russia, especially Russia-based teams, would not be admitted to their tournaments. We looked into the details for you and put them together. More in our article!

The First Statement on CS:GO Russian Teams Comes From BLAST

BLAST announced that, as a result of the ongoing conflict with Ukraine, no Russia-based team will be invited to play in its events for the foreseeable future.

According to BLAST's official announcement, the decision came in response to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces that began on February 24. BLAST also canceled the CIS qualifiers for its Spring Showdown event, saying "we do not think it's appropriate for this to go ahead while this event is currently ongoing." Among the teams invited to the qualifiers was Virtus.pro, which reached the quarterfinals at IEM Katowice just five days before BLAST's announcement. Gambit, currently ranked second in the world according to HLTV.org, was also expected to receive an invite to the Spring Showdown event.

The CIS qualifiers for BLAST Spring Showdown were set to be run by WePlay Esports, based in Kyiv, Ukraine. On February 26, WePlay announced it was ending cooperation with all partners in the Russian Federation, meaning it would not advertise any Russian-origin brands on its broadcasts or to its viewers. Then, on February 27, they confirmed they were ending partnerships with Belarusian companies following "the Republic of Belarus's government cooperating in the war against Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence." BLAST confirmed the decision would not affect fan favorite NAVI, one of the league's co-founding organizations. Although the majority of their roster is Russian, the team and organization are avoiding the ban because they are based in Ukraine.

BLAST became the first tournament organizer to formally ban Russian teams from competing in its events following the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

ESL Issues a Statement on CS:GO Russian Teams for the ESL Pro League!

ESL announced that, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, organizations with "apparent ties" to the Russian government will not be allowed to be represented in the upcoming season of the ESL Pro League. The tournament organizer has currently identified two Russia-based organizations with Kremlin ties, Gambit and Virtus.pro, both of which were set to be represented in ESL Pro League 15.

Gambit is owned by MTS, Russia's largest telecom company, whose parent holding company AFK Sistema PAO is run by Vladimir Yevtushenkov. Yevtushenkov's name appeared on the 2018 'Putin list' of 210 political figures and oligarchs with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Virtus.pro is owned by ESforce Holding, which was bought in 2018 by Mail.Ru Group Limited, now known as VK. Since December 2021, state-owned insurance company Sogaz has held a controlling stake in VK, and the company has been included in the European Union's February 28 sanctions list against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

According to ESL, players from both organizations will be allowed to compete in the tournament under a neutral name, without representing their country, organization or sponsors. ESL said, "We know the players are not complicit in this situation, and we don't think it's in the spirit of esports to sanction individual players."

ESL took a somewhat softer stance than BLAST, which announced on March 1 that Russia-based teams were fully banned for the foreseeable future. On March 2, the Finnish tournament organizer also decided to suspend all "Russian-owned organizations" from its tournaments.

Virtus.pro and Gambit have not yet said whether they plan to comply with ESL's new regulations. Virtus.pro is in Group B of the ESL Pro League, which starts on March 16, while Gambit is in Group C, starting a week later. The tournament will be held in Germany with an $823,000 prize pool.