Russian org Virtus.pro blames \u201ccancel culture\u201d for ESL Pro League ban Virtus.proRussian CS:GO team Virtus.pro have responded to an announcement by ESL that Russian teams would be barred from Season 15 of the ESL Pro League, calling the decision \u201ca prime example of \u2018the cancel culture’\u201d. The ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, which began on February 24, continues to have knock-on effects on the esports industry. Multiple tournament organizers, including Riot Games and BLAST Premier, have announced changes to their CIS tournament operations during the crisis, with some tournaments opting to bar Russian teams from participating altogether. The most recent tournament operator to make this decision was ESL, who announced on March 2 that they would be barring all teams with affiliations with the Russian government from competing in the upcoming ESL Pro League. The only two teams to which these sanctions apply are Russian organizations Virtus.pro and Gambit. Addressing ESL Pro League statement on https:\/\/t.co\/RghpmPyTHr. pic.twitter.com\/sfNliB4rGU \u2014 Virtus.pro (@virtuspro) March 4, 2022 While Gambit are yet to respond to the ban, Virtus.pro\u2019s response came on March 4, when they claimed that there were \u201cno rational reasons\u201d that they should be barred from competing in tournaments, and that ESL\u2019s decision was one made on \u201cprejudice and pressure from the outside.\u201d ESL\u2019s inquiry a \u201cmere formality\u201d According to Virtus.pro, they provided a \u201cfull and comprehensive response\u201d to ESL\u2019s request for paperwork detailing their ownership group and whether or not their affiliates were subject to sanctions placed on Russian businesses and oligarchs. However, they claim the request was a \u201cmere formality\u201d, and that despite supposedly proving they had \u201cno affiliation\u201d with sanctioned individuals or businesses, they were still banned from the event. Russian state-run insurance company Sogaz has a controlling stake in Virtus.pro\u2019s ownership group VK, and are one of the companies included on the European Union\u2019s sanctions list imposed on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Despite this, Virtus.pro claim they are \u201cnot connected\u201d to the Russian government in any way. In ESL\u2019s statement, both Gambit and Virtus.pro\u2019s teams were offered the opportunity to compete under a \u201cneutral name, without representing their country, organization, or team\u2019s sponsors.\u201d Virtus.pro state that \u201cunlike some tournament operators, we are not ready to invalidate someone else\u2019s efforts\u201d, and that if their current roster chooses to play at the ESL Pro League, the organization will \u201csupport their decision\u201d. \u201cESL refuses to communicate with the club management, preferring to speak directly to the players,\u201d Virtus.pro said. \u201cWe are facing a prime example of the \u2018cancel culture\u2019. \u201cHowever, in this case, there are no ultimatums that are supposed to push us towards certain actions. That\u2019s why we won\u2019t respond to this aggression with aggression of our own by forbidding our players from playing in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian org Virtus.pro blames \u201ccancel culture\u201d for ESL Pro League ban Virtus.proRussian CS:GO team Virtus.pro have responded to an announcement by ESL that Russian teams would be barred from Season 15 of the ESL Pro League, calling the decision \u201ca prime example of \u2018the cancel culture’\u201d. The ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}