ESL Ban Gambit and VP from being Represented at ESL Pro League 15

ESL have decided that organizations with “apparent ties to the Russian government” will not be allowed to be represented at their upcoming event ESL Pro League Season 15. These sanctions affect two organizations – Gambit Esports and Virtus.pro. The teams will still be able to participate in the competition; however, they will be forced to compete under a neutral name without representing their country or organization in any way.

The decision comes a week after the start of the new Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company also decided to pause all scheduled competitions in the CIS regions out of respect for the situation. They will be played at a later point in time. Besides that, they will support affected people with donations to UNHCR and provide paid time off for affected colleagues and for employees to volunteer for humanitarian relief.

ESL Pro League Season 15 is a LAN-event with $823,000 at stake, scheduled to take place in Cologne, Germany on March 9th – April 10th. The 24 participants have been split into four groups as follows:

• Group A (March 9 – 13): G2, NiP, Entropiq, Fnatic, MOUZ, LFO
• Group B (March 16 – 20): Vitality, VP, FaZe, FURIA, ENCE, Sprout
• Group C (March 23 – 27): Gambit, Liquid, GODSENT, BIG, Movistar, Astronauts
• Group D (March 30 – April 3): NAVI, Heroic, Astralis, Complexity, EG, AGO